Enhancing Social Presence by Connecting Consumer Electronic Devices

Enhancing Social Presence by
Connecting Consumer Electronic Devices


The Effect of Awareness Information on Social Presence and Group Attraction









C.A.G.J. Huijnen, MSc

Final project of the User System Interaction Program

Confidential document

ISBN 90-444-0229-3








Supervisors: Boris de Ruyter (Philips Research Eindhoven)
Panos Markopoulos (Technical University Eindhoven)
Wijnand Ijsselsteijn (Technical University Eindhoven)

Table of contents


Table of contents 2

Index of tables: 3

Index of figures 3

Acknowlegdements 4

General Summary 5

Management summary 6

1. Introduction 7

2. Project Assignment Description 8

3. Problem Definition 9

4. Literature Study 11

4.1 Computer Mediated Communication 11
Context in project 14

4.2 Social Presence 15

4.3 Group Attraction 16

4.4 The Home Environment 17

4.5 The Experience of Watching TV 17

4.6 Ambient Intelligence 18

5. Related Work 20

6. Use of requirements concerning the different domains 21
The road to the visualization 21
Some ideas for visualizations 22
Controlling the level of presence 23

7. Experimental Design 24
Problem statement 24

7.1 Description of the Experiment 25
Setting 25
Participants 25
Conditions 25
Independent variable 26
Dependent variables 26

7.2 Pilot Tests 27
Pilot 1: 'perception of activity' 27
Pilot 2: 'level of activity' 27

8. Descriptive Information 28

9. Results 33

10. Discussion 39

11. Conclusions 41

11.1 Recommendations 41

12. References 42

13. Appendices: 44

1. Appendix Research questions Generated at first phase of project 45

2. Appendix additional figures or tables of the descriptive study 48

3. Appendix Questionnaires 49





Index of tables:

Table 1. General research domains considered 9
Table 2. Specific research domains considered 10
Table 3. Activities in the home interesting to enhance social presence
10
Table 4. Media and Common ground. Table in Preece, Adapted from Clark &
Brennan, 1993 by Preece 2000 Italics added by Preece. 14
Table 5. Advantages and disadvantages of two visualizations (sketch and
full video) 32





Index of figures

Figure 1. Different domains in Presence 15
Figure 2. Korean fans during the World Championship 2002 18
Figure 3. Design of Experiment 25
Figure 4. Sketch-like visualization 26
Figure 5. The amounts of hours the participants watch television per day.
28
Figure 6. With how many other persons do people watch TV? 28
Figure 7. Drivers for people to watch TV together with other person
29
Figure 8. Comparison of programs people prefer to watch alone versus in
presence of others 29
Figure 9. Comparison of current communication and desired communication
while watching TV 30
Figure 10. Important aspect about other persons 31
Figure 11. Results about Social Presence experience 33
Figure 12. Results for Social Presence of medium 33
Figure 13. Results for condition on group attraction 34
Figure 14. Results for fascinating interaction 35
Figure 15. Results for "the feeling of being watched" 35
Figure 16. Results for "do you want to use the system at home?" 36
Figure 17. Results for negative distraction of visualization 36
Figure 18. Attention people devote to the TV 37
Figure 19. Additional question; single viewer feels left out? 37
Figure 20. Additional question; single viewer feels alone? 38
Figure 21. Additional question; single viewer belonged to group? 38
Figure 22. Number of persons who did and did not see the game 48
Figure 23. Result of match known by number of people 48


Acknowlegdements

This report discusses the work done during my final project of the post-
graduate program User-System Interaction. The project was carried out in
the Media Interaction Group at Philips Research Eindhoven. This group
works on very interesting projects and the atmosphere is great. Hereby I
would like to thank the members of the group for their fruitful discussions
and support they gave me during the 9 months I joined them. Especially, I
would like to thank my supervisors; Boris de Ruyter (Philips Research),
Panos Markopoulos and Wijnand Ijsselsteijn (both from Technical University
Eindhoven).
All three helped me to achieve my goals in this project in their supporting
and involving way.
Thank you for your devotion and time; I learned a lot these nine months,
and I enjoyed working with you.


General Summary

This project is conducted as a final project for the User-System-
Interaction program of the Stan Ackermans Institute. The project is carried
out for Philips Research in Eindhoven in the Intelligent User Interfaces
cluster of the Media Interaction Group.

The goal of the project is to gain more knowledge about developing social
interactions in computer-mediated settings. Technology is often used in
office- or work settings where communication or interaction between people
and groups are supported by means of different media and applications.
Email, videoconferencing and collaborative applications all support the
users in their communicative tasks. Research and evaluation of these
systems is usually focused on usability aspects like learnability,
efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction. Fairly little work has
been done to support or enhance the interactions and experiences of people
in the home environment. Clearly this is a different context where
different aspects have to be considered and different usability criteria
play a role. People have different goals and needs in the home domain.

As connectivity between devices in (different) environments increases, the
nature of social interaction between people changes. Computers will more
and more become enablers for social interaction. In this context it is
important to think about the goals and effects of introducing technology as
a social mediator. Systematic research is needed to examine what the
effects are of introducing communication technology in connected homes. How
to deal with privacy issues? How to enable people to preserve and express
their identity in the interaction? How to deal with multi-user situations?
Many of these kinds of issues arise when developing interactive systems in
this area.

Focusing on the home environment, we selected a few important concepts and
focus on the one that we believe is able to provide people with benefits
concerning the interaction with other people while sharing activities. In
the current project we are specifically interested in the concept of social
presence that is the feeling of being socially together. Despite the range
of communication technologies available today, it is felt that people on
different locations have a need to stay in touch and share activities. In
this project we explore the effect of providing people with different
amounts of visual information while they are watching the same football
match on TV with a friend on another location. Is there a difference in the
level of social presence they experience depending on the amount of
information they receive? Is there a relationship between the level of
presence and the group attraction people experience? Do people feel more
part of the group when they receive more information about the others? Is
there a difference in the experience of social presence and group
attraction between the people who are alone versus part of a group? These
are the main questions we would like to answer in this study.

In order to answer these questions an experiment is conducted in a home
environment. Participants are 12 groups of 3 friends who are watching a
match simultaneously from different locations. Different visualizations
(varying in the amount of information they display) are shown during the
match in order to be able to measure possible differences in social
presence and group attraction. People are placed in different viewing
conditions (single versus in a group of 2 friends) in order to assess
whether levels of social presence and group attraction depend on the
viewing condition.

This kind of research is needed to gain more knowledge about the effect of
technology on the social interaction between people.

This project is supervised by: Boris de Ruyter (Philips Research), Panos
Markopoulos and Wijnand IJsselsteijn (Technical University Eindhoven).



Management summary

This paragraph provides a summary of the experiment that is conducted and
the main results.

The goal of this project is to gain knowledge about effects of technology
on social interaction between people. Specifically we are interested in the
concept of social presence, i.e. the feeling of being socially together. By
means of displaying different visualisations (varying in the amount of
information they convey about the interaction partner) we try to increase
the experience of social presence while friends are watching a football
game from different locations. Different conditions concerning the amount
of information that is displayed can be distinguished. Firstly, a control
condition where people do not receive any information about the remote
friend(s) while they are watching the game. Secondly, a sketchy
visualisation condition where a silhouette like image (based on movement)
is displayed above the TV screen people are watching. Thirdly, a full video
visualisation is shown above the screen. Here people see the other in more
detail, a live video (no audio). Two friends are watching the game in one
room, an other friend watches the game at another location. In addition to
social presence, we study an interesting from social psychology; group
attraction. Group attraction refers to the desire of an individual to
identify with and with an accepted member of the group. We are interested
in the effects of showing different amounts of information about the
interaction partner on social presence and group attraction. Is there a
difference in the level of social presence depending on the visualisation
that is used? Is there an effect of condition on group attraction? Is there
a difference between the experience of social presence and group attraction
for the different kind of viewers?

Results indicate that there is an effect of condition on both social
presence and group attraction in favour of the full video visualisation. In
this condition the single viewer feels socially together with the remote
group despite the physical distance. For the group viewers this holds as
well; they feel socially together with the single viewer in the full
visualisation. People find the full visualisation a richer medium than the
sketchy visualisation. A richer medium is for example warmer, emotional,
friendlier, and more personal for example. The experience of social
presence that people had during the full visualisation was higher: they had
for example the impression they were sharing an activity, having a meeting,
and receiving enough information about the other.

Moreover, both the single and group viewer is more attracted to the group
in the full visualisation condition. When using the richer medium, they
identify more with the group and feel a more accepted member of the group.
The sketch visualisation is not able to enhance neither social presence nor
group attraction. There is no difference in the experience of social
presence between the kinds of viewers. In terms of social presence and
group attraction, people benefit from richer communication technologies
when communicating at distances. People who are communicating with a group
of persons at a distance feel more part of the group when richer
communication media are used. The group viewers considered the single
persons as more part of the group as well.

The interaction with the full visualization is more fascinating than the
sketch visualization. The full visualization is preferred over the sketchy.
People prefer to see the other in a detailed way; they want to see what the
other is doing and how he is reacting on certain moments. Moreover, people
expressed that they would benefit of adding sound to the full video
visualization. Expectations based on literature would be that social
presence would increase when audio is added. People consider watching
television as a social activity; sharing ideas or opinions through sound
are important.






Introduction

As connectivity becomes more part of our lives and of our daily use of
electronic devices, we can expect that network infrastructures will become
enablers for social interactions. Often the value of connectivity is
interpreted as high for the distribution of content. While today's focus is
on access to content, we should anticipate the role of networking
technology in the function of human-to-human interactions. Although
applications such as chatting via Internet and SMS via mobile phones exist,
there is more to system-mediated communication. Another, fairly unexplored
application is the sharing of activities through networked devices. In
order for these applications to have value for the users it is important
that research identifies what attracts people in using such applications.
For applications where the sharing of activities is central, we believe
social presence will be a main driver for people. Social presence refers to
"the sense of being together (and communicating) with someone". Social
presence is the focus of attention in our research; social presence
(especially the part of 'the sense of being together") and other related
research areas are addressed. The next paragraph describes the project
assignment, which will be followed by a problem definition. In that
paragraph the problem is described and different research domains
considered that lead to the topic of social presence are discussed. After
deciding that social presence is an interesting topic, a literature study
is done. Paragraph 4 provides an outline of different domains that are
important here (like, computer mediated communication, social presence,
group attraction, the home environment, the experience of watching
television, and finally a paragraph on ambient intelligence). After
studying the literature, paragraph 5 deals with related work. Paragraph 6
gives a description of the use of requirements for this project concerning
the different domains. The 7th paragraph gives a description of the
experimental design that is used in the study. The focus of this project is
to examine the effects of the amount of information on social presence and
group attraction. Then paragraph 8 discusses descriptive information that
is elicited from the participants. The results of the main experiment are
described in paragraph 9. In the 10th paragraph the results are discussed.
Finally, conclusions can be drawn as recommendations are given in paragraph
11.



Project Assignment Description

The first description of the project assignment was stated very generally:
to gain knowledge about the social interactions in system mediated
settings. When technology is brought to people's environments there is a
risk that not only the tasks of the users with this technology change, but
the interactions between other persons changes as well. Of course an
overview of the context is needed in order to say something about the
effects that technology can have. Depending on the design and use of
systems, they may promote or inhibit our social relationships. Information
technologies are playing a large role in human social lives; therefore it
is important that we gain more knowledge about the consequences of
introducing technology into our environments. No longer computers are
solely being used for performing certain tasks; they are enabling us as
well to communicate with others and the computer is moving slowly into
people's social environment.

To achieve more systematic knowledge about the effects that systems can
have on people's social interaction, controlled experiments have to be
done. Experiments can be done to get more insight in emerging behaviour
when interacting with systems, to gain knowledge on how to avoid users
being frustrated by systems, to know how to design systems that are
sensitive to user's needs, to get inspiration for new ideas for
applications. Designing systems for people requires knowledge about the
tasks people have to achieve, the context people work/live in, and the
interactions people have with persons and/or devices in their environment.
In this project an experiment is done to investigate social interaction
in/between home environments. The next paragraph discusses the problem
definition.








Problem Definition

The first step in the project was to identify interesting research issues
relevant to system mediated communication. A number of 'requirements'
related to the focus of the project were set during the first exploration:
– The context is the home environment. The home environment is a
very complex setting, where complicated behaviors take place and
emerge. When bringing technology into the home environment it can
be that behavior is changed or different behavior emerges. Clearly,
in the home some activities are more common/suited than others. The
home, for example, is a place to relax and share time with family
or friends. As a consequence, the activity/need that technology has
to support/fulfill is limited to certain behaviors.
– The interaction that is about to take place has to be an
interaction between houses, not within one house. The technology
should enable interaction between people at different locations.
– The users we are dealing with were friends/family/acquaintances,
which is a logical consequence of the first requirement that deals
with the home environments. A home is not a place were lots of
strangers meet obviously. People know the people in the other
houses as well. People know the persons in the other houses they
are interacting with. As a result the setting is rather informal,
both within and between the houses.
On the basis on these requirements the following topics were considered as
interesting.

"Research domains considered "
"General "Cooperation "
" "Family rituals "
" "Role differentiation "
" "Power allocation "
" "Affection "
" "Information sharing "
" "Family rules "
" "Conflict resolution/ "
" "avoidance "
" "Supportive behaviour "
" "Initiative "
" "Commitment "
" "Dominance "
" "Trust "
" " "



















Table 1. General research domains considered

Many of these topics are difficult to test in the duration of the project.
For example, when you consider the family rituals, a thorough investigation
of the family structure and more longer term testing is needed in order to
achieve valuable results. Other topics were very interesting from a
research perspective, yet not so fruitful and suited to the Philips target
group/vision/strategy. The next table deals with research topics that we
focused on more specifically. The focus is on social presence in this
project. The generation of topics and questions was done in an iterative
way, and devoting a central place to the user. His desires, abilities,
goals/tasks and context were kept in mind continuously.
Theorists from different research fields are working on presence (which can
be divided into physical presence, social presence and co-presence) and
apply the concept to different domains. Some examples are tele-education,
entertainment, medicine, and communication. Social presence is the topic
that was chosen. Social presence can be defined as 'the feeling of being
socially together (and communicating with each other) (IJsselsteijn, 2001).
Social presence will be discussed in more detail in paragraph 4.2. It is
believed that social presence can enhance experiences of people in the home
environment: people want to share activities; they want to be together with
their families and friends. When we can use technology in such a way that
we are able to provide people with the feeling of being together, we
believe this is an added value for the users. Social presence is a broad
concept, and received a lot of attention recently. Many theorists are
working on different aspects and use their own definitions and constructs.
Because of the possible social use of social presence, it seems like a
valuable concept in the home environment as well. The table below shows
some examples of other research topics or questions that were considered.
Additional research question generated during the project can be found in
appendix 1.
"Research "Examples of research questions/topics "
"domains " "
"Spe"Ambient "What are the core values/aspects of the "family culture"?"
"ci "culture "How can technology allow for representing different "
"f " "identities? "
"ic " "What information do we need of people in order to adapt "
" " "to their behaviour/goals? "
" " "How to respond in the case of multi user situations with "
" " "conflicting desires? "
" " "How can we enhance the 'group or family culture' "
" " "experience? "
" "Control "How much control do people want/need themselves and how "
" " "much do they give to technology in different situations? "
" "Privacy "What information do people want to share with others and "
" " "how? "
" " "How to inform people about the usage of data about "
" " "them/their behaviour? What is acceptable for people? "
" "Anonymity"What is the effect of anonymity on a person's "
" " "identity/behaviour? "
" "Social "Is the level of presence people like to 'receive' equal "
" "presence "to the level of presence like to 'give'? "
" " "Is there a relation between the level of presence and "
" " "group attraction? "


Table 2. Specific research domains considered

Social presence was found to be an interesting topic because of several
reasons. More and more technology is possible to connect people at
different locations. For Philips, connecting people is a valuable business
concept. People belong to groups and they want to be together, despite of
distances between them. After deciding that social presence is an
interesting topic, the next step was to identify the activities that would
be interesting to enhance social presence in the home. This was done on an
iterative basis of reading literature and thinking about the home setting.
The table below shows some of these activities.
"Home activities for which it may"
"be interesting to enhance social"
"presence "
"Watching TV (sport, show, "
"contest) "
"Having dinner together "
"Waking up "
"Dressing "
"Cooking "
"Taking care of each other "
"Listening music "
"Having discussions "
"Playing games together "
"Personal assistance "
"Singing/karaoke "
"Having 'access' to each other "


















Table 3. Activities in the home interesting to enhance social presence


Watching television is written in red; the focus is on this activity in
this project. In this project we are focussed interacting within and
between homes, we are interested to study the effects of enhancing social
presence in the home while friends are watching TV. Watching television can
be seen as a social activity where people engage in together with others,
especially in the home environment. Literature has not yet shown many
applications around the social aspects of watching television together. A
more detailed study into social psychology was needed to identify
interesting concepts in the context of the project. More knowledge was
needed about the different domains involved and a literature study was
done. Paragraph 4 addresses some of these domains.

Literature Study

In order to be able to generate valuable research questions a thorough
understanding of the different domains that are of interest to this project
is needed. In the following paragraphs, different domains are discussed
that are important or related to this project.

13 Computer Mediated Communication

The phrase "computer-mediated communication" is an umbrella expression that
evolved from a practical necessity to capture a large group of technologies
that depend upon computer technology to facilitate communication. For
example, communication technologies such as audio teleconferencing, video
conferencing, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), voice mail
or even a fax interaction could be considered to be CMC because all use
computer-driven networks. In CMC digital techniques are used to create and
transmit asynchronous and synchronous messages. Important aspects of CMC
are synchronicity and information richness:
Synchronicity is the relation according to time. Asynchronous
communication is communication in which messages are exchanged during
different time intervals. For example, e-mail is an asynchronous type
of CMC because two people do not have to sit at the computer at the
same time to be able to communicate. Synchronous Communication on the
other hand, is communication in which messages are exchanged during
the same time interval. For example, instant messaging is a type of
CMC in which the participants must be at the computer at the same
time.
Information Richness; according to various theorists, communication
media have different capacities to reduce uncertainty in
relationships. For example, face-to- face (FtF) communication is
considered to be the "richest" medium because of the number of
information channels (i.e. visual, auditory, olfactory) that reduce
the uncertainty in the communication. In contrast, CMC is less "rich"
because there is most often only one information channel (text).

The use of computer-mediated communication is increasing rapidly. People
engage in all sorts of interaction via CMC. Communities so far have been
determined by time and space. People gather and interact on the same time
at the same place. Virtual environments are creating a new kind of space
for people to gather. People are now able to interact with each other at
different locations, a new 'interaction space' is created for them. A
variety of behaviours in virtual communities can be identified, e.g.
conduct commerce, exchange knowledge, emotional contact, play games,
talk/chat, exchange objects. In sum, there is a variety of social
interaction behaviours in CMC.

The communication medium that is best suited depends on the type of
communication that is needed. For communication, for example, of basic
factual information, such as a list of names, addresses, and phone numbers,
low-bandwidth systems are adequate (Sellen, 1994). Researchers working on
computer-mediated communication in business reported that consensus
building using textual systems is less effective than in face-to-face
meetings (e.g. Sproull & Kiesler, 1991 in Preece, 2000). Similar reports
came from education, which led to the assumption that textual CMC systems
support communication poorly, particularly socioemotional communication.
The advantage of broadband video conferencing is that it more closely
resembles face-to-face communication than email, lists servers, Internet
Relay Chat (IRC) and bulletin boards. In the case of video conferencing,
voice tone, gestures, body language, and contextual information are
communicated. However, because of the high demand for bandwidth, it is
expensive and networks are needed to provide sufficient bandwidth. Two
related theories that help to explain these observations are 'social
presence theory' (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976) and 'media richness
theory" (Draft & Lengel, 1986). The social presence theory and media
richness theory, are based on the premise that media have different
capacities to carry interpersonal communicative acts (IJsselsteijn et al,
2001). Theorists talk about a continuum in the array of available
audiovisual communication media ranging from face-to-face interactions at
the rich, more social end and written communication at the less rich, less
social end. Studies have been carried out in the context of rich audio and
broadband video communication. In most cases the results indicated that
richer media were better able to create feelings of social presence.

Social presence theory (Short et al., 1976) addresses how successfully
media convey a sense of the participants being in physical proximity, using
face-to-face communication as the benchmark for the assessment. It is not
needed to feel physically located at another location, however, the sense
of 'as if they were together' is important. Social presence depends not
only on the words people speak but also on nonverbal cues, body language,
and context (Rice, 1987 a). Reduced social cues (i.e. gestures, body
language, facial expression, appearance, and so on) are caused by low
bandwidth (Walther, 1993), and inadequate technological support for aspects
such as gaze tracking or multi-person conferencing, which affects
communication.

Media richness theory is similar to social presence but takes a media
perspective (Draft & Lengel, 1986). It describes the media's capacity for
immediate feedback-how well it conveys cues, and how many and in which ways
the senses are involved. Richness of a medium is measured by its capacity
for immediate feedback, multiple cues, language variety, and
personalization. The media richness theory states that task performance
will be improved when task needs are matched to a medium's ability to
convey information.

The consequences of filtering out social, emotional and contextual
information vary depending on their importance to the communication task.
There are three main ways that this affects communication (Preece, 2000).
First, signals needed to understand conversation may be missing (e.g.
nodding the head). Second, conversations proceed by speakers taking turns;
various signals such as pauses in speech or gaze are used to indicate the
other speaker to take turn. Third, seeing and hearing the speaker enables
the listener to infer information regarding the context of the conversation
and the speaker's feelings.

Reduced social cues can encourage unusual behaviour that would not occur if
people could see each other. Some people feel comfortable behaving
aggressively online because they are hidden behind a veil of anonymity
(Preece, 2000). The way participants form impressions of each other and how
much personal information they are prepared to disclose are also
influenced. In addition, with fewer social cues to monitor, some people
find it easier, even fun, to assume different persona or even switch gender
(Preece, 2000). These effects are interrelated in complex ways; yet these
can play an important role for the success of building social presence
environments. Separating them is not straightforward.

Common-ground theory is a third interesting theory. It can be used as a
framework for determining how two or more people communicate that they
understand each other. It focuses on how the communication process and
content are coordinated. Much of this coordination depends upon social
presence or appropriate ways of compensating for its absence. The
developers of the theory (Herb Clark and Susan Brennan) argue:
" It takes two people working together to play a duet, shake hands,
play chess, waltz, teach, or make love. To succeed, the two of them have to
coordinate both the content and the process of what they are doing… They
cannot even begin to coordinate on content without assuming a vast amount
of shared information or common ground – that is, mutual knowledge, mutual
beliefs, and mutual assumptions. … to coordinate on process, they need to
update their common ground moment by moment."
All collective actions are built on common ground and its accumulation
(Clark & Brennan, 1993, in Preece, 2000). Generally, people are trying to
achieve this common ground unconsciously, with as little effort as
possible. This is where media are important. The amount and type of effort
varies depending on the communication medium. For example, a nod may work
in a face-to-face conversation, but not over the phone. Different media
offer different opportunities, as the following list indicates (in Preece,
2000; Clark & Brennan, 1993):
Co-presence: A and B share the same physical environment, as in
face-to-face conversation.
Visibility: A and B are visible to each other, as in face-to-
face communication and video conferencing. Being able to 'read
each other's body language is very important for communicating
emotion. Developers provide emoticons and other techniques to
compensate the lack of visibility in textual systems.
Co temporality: B receives at roughly the same time as A
presents, so the message is received immediately.
Simultaneity: A and B can send and receive at once and
simultaneously.
Sequentially: A's and B's turns cannot get out of sequence as in
asynchronous communication. In asynchronous communication,
periods of several seconds, minutes, hours, or days, may pass
between a message being sent and a response being generated.
Reviewability: B can review A's message. For example, text
messages can be reviewed, whereas spoken messages cannot and are
lost when the speaker stops speaking.
Revisibility: A can revise messages for B. If messages persist,
they can be revised-providing they can be accessed.


If one of these opportunities is not present, and the communication is
constrained by its absence, ways of overcoming or dealing with it have to
be found (Preece, 2000). However, in some circumstances a disadvantage can
turn out not to be so bad after all, and there is no problem despite the
fact that some possibilities are absent. For example, the delay between
receiving a message via asynchronous textual conferencing and sending a
reply can provide valuable time for reflection. Table 4 provides an outline
of the communication opportunities offered by different types of
media/systems, and describes their advantages and disadvantages. These
media are examined on their terms of common ground, which originally was
developed to explain face-to-face communication in relation of CMC.
Interestingly, face-to-face lacks some possibilities offered by other
media. Face-to-face interaction is not necessarily the best medium for all
purposes. For example, it is difficult to review a face-to-face
conversation, and there may be little time to reflect, whereas a text-based
interchange is a much better medium for reviewing and reflecting. There is
no medium that is suited for all tasks and environments, so none of the
described media can be considered 'best'; different attributes are better
for various communication tasks in specific contexts (Rice, 1987a).

"Medium "Possibilitie"Comments "
" "s " "
"Face-to-fa"Co-presence,"It can be difficult to delay response to "
"ce "visibility, "reflect. Moreover, people may communicate "
" "audibility, "certain messages or feelings unintentionally "
" "co "via body language. An awkward glance, for "
" "temporality,"example, may communicate a lack of agreement "
" "simultaneity"despite the words being spoken. "
" ", " "
" "sequentialit" "
" "y " "
"Telephone "Audibility, "No opportunity to 'read' body language and "
" "cotemporalit"thereby limiting socio-emotional "
" "y, "communication. Voice tone can be a means to "
" "simultaneity"convey socio-emotional messages. The phone "
" ", "works well for conveying factual information."
" "sequentialit" "
" "y " "
"Video "Visibility, "Response capability of technology can "
"conferenci"audibility, "inversely influence synchrony and impede "
"ng "cotemporalit"turn-taking. Reception of messages may be "
" "y, "slow; delay may cause misunderstandings. "
" "simultaneity"Limited screens (size and quality) makes "
" ", "seeing body language and other cues difficult"
" "sequentialit"to perceive. High bandwidth is needed to "
" "y (in some "prevent a frustrating experience. "
" "systems) " "
"Terminal "Cotemporalit"Production takes more time, but there is "
"tele-confe"y, "control over timing. Having time to reflect "
"rence "sequentialit"can be very useful, because understanding "
"(textual) "y, "message content is often heightened. "
" "revieability"Emotional understanding, however, may suffer "
" " "from poor social presence; developers need to"
" " "seek ways to find solutions to this problem. "
"Answering "Audibility, "Receiving only. There is no feedback whether "
"machines "reviewabilit"the other persons received the message. "
" "y "Social presence is limited. "
"Electronic"Reviewabilit"Production takes more time, though control "
"mail "y, "gives time to reflect. Turn-taking is often "
" "revisabililt"delayed, but understanding of verbal messages"
" "y "is often better; however, emotional "
" " "understanding can suffer from poor social "
" " "presence. Alternatives are needed to make up "
" " "for absence of body language transmission for"
" " "supporting socio-emotional and contextual "
" " "communication. "
"Letters "Reviewabilit"Very slow turn taking. Generally the effect "
" "y, "is adverse, though understanding may be "
" "revisability"improved by reflection time. "
"Bulletin "Reviewabilit"Production takes time, though macro control "
"boards "y, "offers time to reflect. Verbal messages are "
" "revisability"often better understood. Threading helps "
" ", "delineate among speakers. Socio-emotional "
" "sequentialit"communication is often supported by use of "
" "y "icons. "
"Chats "Cotemporalit"Often very fast moving, which prohibits long "
" "y, "messages. Turn-taking is often chaotic, as "
" "simultaneity"there is no time for delay or fault "
" " "correction. This format can be difficult for "
" " "poor or slow typists. "
"MOO's text"Cotemporalit"Learning curve prohibits casual "
"only "y, "participation. Response time depends on "
" "simultaneity"number of participants. Ways of displaying "
" " "emotion are well developed in some systems. "
"MOO's & "Cotemporalit"As above; but sense of social presence is "
"MUDs-graph"y, "aided by avatar and graphical world of "
"ical, with"simultaneity"community action. "
"avatars " " "
"Computer "Cotemporalit"Requires high bandwidth. Strong sense of "
"virtual "y, "co-presence with intention of improving "
"environmen"simultaneity"communication. "
"ts " " "


Table 4. Media and Common ground. Table in Preece, Adapted from Clark &
Brennan, 1993 by Preece 2000 Italics added by Preece.


Context in project

Depending on the context and tasks/behavior of the people, it is possible
that a less rich medium can better fulfill the person's needs. In this
project, the setting can be described as follows:


It is Friday evening, 20.00 o'clock. Bob, John and Max have gathered
at Bob's. Tonight it is going to happen; the important football match
is about to take place, and they are going to enjoy it together. They
are sitting on a couch in the living room in front of the tube.


300 kilometers up north in a living room, Eric is sitting alone on his
couch. He is thinking about his friends who are going to watch the
same match together. If only he lived closer, then he would join them
as well.

This scenario describes the problem that we like to tackle in this project.
We want to enhance social presence for people while they are sharing an
activity (of watching a match on TV) despite a physical distance between
them. In other words, we would like to give Bob, John, Max and Eric the
feeling that they are socially together, watching this football match,
although they are at different locations.

With respect to the characteristics described by Preece, the following
discussion can be given related to this project:

Important aspects of the context itself:

They are watching a football game on television. Clearly, it is
important that they see and hear what is going on in the game.
When a match is broadcasted, there is a commentator who provides
auditory cues and information about the match. In this context
we decided not to provide an option that they can hear each
other, because of the experiment set-up. In previous studies,
audio was added to visual conditions and it appeared that there
was an effect of audio on social presence. In this experiment we
did not include audio because we assumed it would correlate
positively with social presence, and we were more interested in
providing more levels of visual information.
The interaction may not ask too much attention, yet should give
the people a sense of what is going on at the other side.
The interaction should be a very light weighted one, in the
sense that people do not have to put a lot of conscious effort
to interact with the system that enables them to stay aware of
the others. People are watching television at home, and are not
interested in a very elaborated interaction with a device.

Discussion of the aspects of the interaction (of Preece, 2000) between the
two locations:
The first four aspects are important in this context.


1. Visibility: the different persons at the both locations have to see
the activities of each other. How clearly and precise this is needed
is one of the research questions of this project. It can be that less
information about each other is preferred, however it can be the case
as well that people show more interest in a full video mode.


2. Co temporality: it is important that the things that happen are
simultaneously present for group A as they are for group B. This is
important to achieve a sense of social presence. People are sharing an
activity at the same time, so the delay between different actions or
reactions must be short.

3. Simultaneity: both groups of people can interact with the system
simultaneously. The system monitors and displays the activity
simultaneously on both sides.


4. Sequentially: both group A and B can act or react whenever they want.
The system is synchronous, so they do not have to wait for each other
in order to interact. Changes of both sides will be processed and
displayed simultaneously.

The following aspects of interaction are considered less important in the
context for the scenario that this project focuses upon:

1. Co-presence is not important in this setting. People are watching the
match from different locations
and it is not important that they really have the feeling that they
are physically a shared location.


2. Reviewability: this is not important in this setting; there is no
need to review actions.


3. Revisibility: this is not important in this setting. The interaction
is needed at the time of the game, after that it is not an issue
anymore.

In the next paragraph social presence will be given more attention to.


1 Social Presence

The concept of presence is used differently by different theorists, each
looking at the concept from their own perspective and applying their own
emphasis and definitions. As a matter of fact, the defining characteristics
of the concept itself are still under discussion (IJsselsteijn, Freeman &
de Ridder, 2001). Lombard and Ditton (1997) reviewed a substantial part of
presence literature and distinguished six different but interrelated
conceptualisations of presence; presence as social richness, presence as
realism, presence as transportation, presence as immersion, presence as
social actor within medium, and presence as medium as social actor. The six
conceptualisations can be grouped in two broad categories, physical and
social presence (Freeman, 1999). Physical presence refers to the sense of
physically being located somewhere, 'being there' in a mediated
environment. Here people are often situated in virtual environments and
equipped with additional devices like head mounted displays in order to
increase the sensation of being somewhere else. Social presence, on the
other hand, can be defined as 'the sense of being together' (and
communicating) with someone (IJselsteijn, de Ridder, Freeman & Avons,
2000). Here the focus is not on the sensation of being in another mediated
location. However, it is important that people feel that they are
interacting with another person. At the intersection of these two
categories, 'co-presence' can be identified (IJsselsteijn et al., 2001).
This refers to a sense of being together in a shared space, combining
characteristics of both physical and social presence.








Figure 1. Different domains in Presence

In this research the attention will be on social presence: the feeling of
socially being together (and communicating) with each other (IJsselsteijn
et al 2001). In face-to-face interactions a lot of attention is devoted to
non-verbal aspects of the communication. The nonverbal behaviour of people
communicates meaningful information. It is argued that interpersonal
intimacy in an interaction is kept at an optimal, equilibrium level through
factors as physical distance, smiling, eye contact, and personal topics of
conversation (Argyle & Dean, 1965). Other added intimacy factors as
gestures, touching, vocal cues (e.g. the tone of voice), turn-taking
behaviour in dialogues (e.g. the frequency of interruptions), the use of
space (e.g. moving towards someone), and verbal expressions directly
acknowledging the communicative partner (e.g. "how did you do that" or
"what do you mean?"). Wiener and Mehrabian (1968) have applied this concept
of immediacy (i.e. the psychological distance a speaker puts between him
and the hearer), to an understanding of speech. They showed that the choice
of 'we ..' as opposed to 'I ..' or 'you..' imply a feeling of closeness
and association. Thus, intimacy and immediacy behaviours seem to be
particularly relevant for social presence (de Greef & IJsselsteijn, 2001).

Festinger et al (1950) found that there is a strong relationship between
physical closeness and the formation of friendships; the costs of
maintaining the separating distance could be more that the psychic rewards
that the relationship would bring. However, telecommunications could be a
great destroyer of distance, allowing people to maintain their contacts
with others independent of the distances between them. Social presence
applications might be a possible bridge between two or more different
locations.

Different studies address different aspects of social presence. A number of
studies focus on the determinants of presence, some others focus on
measurements. This research deals with the consequences and the nature of
presence in the context of the home. People share activities in the home,
and contact people who are not at the same location as they are. People are
part of many groups they interact with. In general a distinction can be
made between two types of groups; primary and secondary (or complex) groups
(Cooley, 1909 in Forsyth, 1999). Primary groups are small, close-knit
groups such as families, friendship cliques, children's playgroups,
emotionally close peers and neighbourhoods. They are characterised by face-
to-face interaction, interdependency, and strong group identification.
According to Cooley primary groups are "fundamental in forming the social
nature and ideas of the individual". Secondary groups, on the other hand,
"are larger and more formally organised and tend to be shorter in duration
and less emotionally involving than primary groups." Members of secondary
groups do not necessarily interact directly with each other or know one
another; the connections are formal and impersonal (e.g. professional
associations, business teams, religious groups). Home studies showed that
people desire more kind of connections to family and close friends (Hindus,
Mainwaring, Leduc, Hagström, Bayley, 2001). It is possible that members of
these kinds of groups are distributed over different locations. With
systems that are capable to connect different members of the group we might
be able to enhance social presence. The next paragraph discusses an
interesting construct in this context, namely group attraction.


2 Group Attraction

Cohesiveness is the descriptive and technical term used by psychologists to
refer to the important property of social groups that is captured in common
usage by a wider range of terms like solidarity, cohesion, comradeship,
team spirit, group atmosphere, unity, 'one-ness', 'we-ness', 'groupness'
and beloningness (Hogg, 1992). Communication of cohesive groups is better,
less inhibited and more frequent. Moreover, satisfaction of group members
is higher in cohesive groups.

In the context of cohesiveness, Hogg makes a distinction between personal
and group level attraction. In the case of personal attraction, persons are
seen as unique beings and the attraction is based on interpersonal
processes. He argues that while members of cohesive groups usually like
each other, this personal attraction is not group cohesion.
Rather, group cohesion corresponds to social attraction; a liking of other
group members that is based on their status as typical group members.
Unlike personal attraction, which is grounded on personal relationships
between the members, social attraction is depersonalised. It reflects the
tendency to admire individuals who possess the kind of qualities that are
typical for our group. Depersonalised perception based on prototypically
(norm, stereotype) generated by categorization is the underlying mechanism
of social attraction.


The level of a group member's attraction to his/her group contributes to a
number of important group outcomes. Members who find their groups
attractive are more likely to remain members of the group and to attend
gatherings regularly (Sagi, Olmstead & Atelsek, 1955). Members who are
attracted to their groups also seem more willing to contribute to group
discussion and self-exploration. Group attraction can be defined as an
individual's desire to identify with and be an accepted member of the group
(Evans & Jarvis, 1986). Attraction to a group can be measured by means of
the Group Attitude Scale (GAS). The GAS is a questionnaire that is
applicable to a broad range of groups. The purpose of the Group Attitude
Scale is to measure members' feelings about a group rather than their
behaviour in the group. Every individual is asked to fill in the
questionnaire according to his/her opinion. Group attraction is measured by
identifying the individual scores, whereas cohesiveness is often treated as
the sum of the individual members' levels of attraction-to-group. In this
research we are interested in the individual ratings of group attraction.
We are interested if people's desires to identify with and be an accepted
member of the group (group attraction) relates to social presence. When
people feel more socially together, does this influence the group
attraction? Do the media allow the remote participant to feel part of the
group?


3 The Home Environment

Designing technology for the home is different than technology that is used
for the workplace. System-mediated interaction is often used in office/work
settings where (secondary) groups are supported by means of collaborative
applications, email or video conferencing for example. Clearly, primary
groups are different in nature from secondary groups. Relatively little
work has been done to support or enhance the interactions and experiences
in the home environment with help of technology. For a discussion on this
issue see Sawhney & Gomez (2000); they state that there has been a lack of
published research or studies in the context of patterns of communication
in the domestic domain and the subsequent design.

The context of use is an important factor to keep in mind when thinking of
possible valuable applications for the user. The work environment receives
a lot of attention. In this context usability is a very important property
of an application. Traditionally, usability is associated with five
attributes; learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and
satisfaction (Nielsen, 1993). Clearly these attributes are of importance in
the work environment. However, it can be questioned if these attributes are
able to fulfil the needs for people in the home environment. Compared to
the work environment, the home setting is not so much task focused.
People's rhythms of everyday live have to be considered and taken into
account. People engage in different activities, and experiences seem to be
a key attribute in the home environment. Atmosphere, privacy, the family,
being together, relax, entertain, cosiness, trust, habits, stay in touch
are all topics that play an important role in the context of the home.
People have goals different than improving productivity or efficiency when
using technology in the home (Plaisant, Druin, Hutchinson, 2002). The
social spaces in the home where family members spend the most substantial
part of their time interacting are separated from workspaces where PC's are
kept (Meateas et al (1996); Venkatesh (1996)). The HomeNet study found that
interpersonal communication is more popular than information or
entertainment applications (Kraut, Mukhopadhyay, Szczypula, Kiesler,
Scherlis, 1998).

Besides the kind of tasks and behaviours that are prevalent in the home
environment, another factor is different in the home environment from the
work environment. Usability is generally treated separately from
aesthetics. The aesthetics component in product design appears to be
restricted to making products beautiful in appearance (Djajadiningrat,
Overbeeke & Wensveen, 2000). Almost everybody is a witness of the
interaction with the most beautiful product that frustrates you the very
moment you start to use it as intended. Home users are more likely to be
less tolerant for ugly, utilitarian designs and hardware or software
failures (Plaisant et al, 2002). Finally, home users are more diverse than
the target audiences of many technology products (Scholtz, Mateas,
Salvador, Sorenson, 1996). Besides the fact that people prefer beautiful
products and systems over ugly designs, the overall experience people have
while interacting with the system or product is important as well.

It is important, especially in the home context, that besides the aesthetic
character of the product, attention is devoted to the enjoyment of the
experience that users receive from interacting with it. Precursors of this
enjoyment of experience can be of different natures, e.g. challenge,
seductive, playful, and rewarding. It is believed that social presence can
be one of these motivations for an enjoying experience. Of course the other
aspects described above must be taken into account as well. One must try to
design a system that stimulates experiences and looks nice as well.

4 The Experience of Watching TV

The amount of hours that people spend per day watching television in the
industrialized world is 3 hours in average (Kubey & Csikszentmihayi, 2002).
This means that somebody who lives up to 75 years would spend 9 years of
his valuable life in front of the tube. The Independent Television
Commission's (ITC) Immersive Television project has identified four
components of users' experiences of media (presence based on a factor
analysis of the ITC-SOPI): a sense of (1) being located within a media-
depicted space, (2) engagement with the narrative, (3) naturalness of (and
interaction with) the presentation, and (4) unwanted side effects (Freeman,
Lodge, and Moss, 2001). Shared aspects of an entertainment experience are
important as well, as evident in pubs, which show live football matches on
modest screens. It is the shared excitement of a special occasion that
attracts people.

Sport spectatorship is an especially pervasive phenomenon. People have an
enormous interest in the passive consumption of competitive sports. In
addition, it is suggested that "casual sociability" is a prime motivator
for sports spectating. Since the ancient times, sports have always
stimulated people. In the ancient coliseums 40000-45000 people were able to
follow a sports game. Today, a game can be viewed by up to 200 million
spectators.

" " "


Figure 2. Korean fans during the World Championship 2002

The role of the electronic media is enormous in heightening the interest
and the ability in spectator sports. Through the use of technology the
audience for a single game went from thousands to millions. The combination
of the interest in sports and the tremendous use of the television make
sense in the home environment. People watch sports at home on their TV; we
are interested in how we can give people a sense of being together while
they are sharing this activity. Social presence is believed to be a strong
user benefit in this context.


5 Ambient Intelligence

In the near future people are able to access distributed networks of
intelligent interaction devices that provide them with information,
communication, and entertainment at any time and any place. This is part of
the Ambient Intelligence vision (Philips Research). The devices in the
environment will adapt themselves to the user and even anticipate the needs
of the user. The digital environment has a number of defining
characteristics; it is sensitive, adaptive, and responsive to the presence
of people. Ambient Intelligence is characterised by its ubiquity,
transparency, and intelligence. Ubiquity refers to the situation that the
user is surrounded by a multitude of interconnected embedded systems.
Transparency refers to the invisibility of the systems and the movement
into the background of the user's environment. The intelligence aspect
deals with the fact that the system will be able to recognise the
inhabitants, and adapts itself, learns form the behaviour of the user, and
it is even able to show emotion.

When we apply this vision to the basic need of people of staying in touch
despite an unavoidable spatial distance, some interesting opportunities
arise. It might be possible to control the level of social presence people
experience depending on a number of factors, for example depending on the
person with whom you are interacting, the time of the day, place, or topic.
The devices in the environment can communicate and interact in order to
provide the user with the optimal environmental setting. Lighting, heating,
and communication systems could be adjusted depending on the different
interactions between remote locations. Technologies have to be embedded in
more social areas in the home in such a way that they minimise the unwanted
side effects of technology. An example can illustrate a kind of unwanted
side effect. Technologies such as email, that home users appear to want to
use to stay in touch with remote friends and family, can have the unwanted
effect of keeping them isolated from their collocated family members,
perhaps even causing declines in psychological and social well-being
(Kraut, Kiesler, Mulkhopadlhyay, Scherlis, Patterson, 1998). Considering
this project it is worth mentioning that the intended goal is NOT to
replace the existing or face-to-face interactions, however, it is intended
to enable interaction or communication at moments between locations where
communication would not be possible otherwise. Physical distance could be a
destroyer of the ability to communicate. With social presence we try to
enable communication in such a situation.

In the current research we are interested if minimal visualization of the
activity of the beloved one is able to achieve a level of social presence.
Weiser & Brown (1996) discuss related issues like background information
and calm computing. In order to be able to move in the direction described
in the scenario above, more knowledge is needed about people's needs,
motives, abilities, preferences concerning the interaction with other
people, locations and devices, in the ambient intelligent environment
described. The next paragraph gives a discussion of projects that are
related to the domains of the home and 'social presence' like contexts.


Related Work

Within the CHI community, specific research and design efforts for the home
environment are sparse. Much of the work that has been done is focused on
the workplace aspects of homes (in Hindus et al, 2001). The topic of
awareness is closely related to social presence. However, most awareness
work has focused on workgroup and workplace concerns (Hindus et al, 2001).

– The Casablanca project applied CSCW and CHI techniques to the home. It
revealed that users wanted devices that respected privacy and did not
create new obligations. A "Presence Light" was made in the Casablanca
project as an awareness-related concept. A pair of objects are linked;
the objects show activity form a remote location. If one light senses
nearby sounds or movement it tells the other light in the other house to
turn on. More activity makes the light brighter. After user testing this
lamp was transformed into an Intentional Presence Lamp were no active
sensing took place; a user's presence was communicated to others only if
(s) he explicitly activated the device.

– RoomLink is an audio space-related concept in which an 'always on'
connection links two rooms in separate households using high quality
audio. Users can hear everything that happens at the other location.

– The Aroma (Abstract Representation of Presence Supporting Mutual
Awareness) project explored the kind of awareness that people can
maintain effortlessly about other beings that are located physically
close (Pedersen and Sokoler, 1997). Pure abstract representations as
presence indicators are used on the display site for the purpose of
peripheral awareness (i.e. images that put a low demand on attention
while conveying 'enough' information about the other site).

– In Telewindows a solution is sought to overcome the social isolation of
homebound elderly (Heeter, Gregg, Dekker, Climo, Biocca, Reed, Haley,
Wilson, 2001). Like a window in a room, a TeleWindow can be opened
anytime to see and hear and be seen and heard by those on the other side
of the window. TeleWindow uses audio, video and network technology to
open a window to a distant location. TeleWindows were opened and kept
open for long periods of time, providing a continuous presence connecting
the two locations. It was possible to make conversations with persons at
the other location, other times it is used more like being in the same
room together going about daily life. TeleWindows provides a new kind of
social relationship: an ambient presence, a shared window between one
individual's life and the lives of chosen social group, friends and/or
family.

– The PhotoShare Tele-Application enables users to view photos together,
while the persons are at remote (home) locations (de Greef, &
IJsselsteijn, 2001). The platform includes a common viewing space where
the photos are displayed and selected, as well as an audio connection and
a large screen video connection for communication between the two sites.
The effects of video communication were studied on social presence.
Results indicated that adding broadband, life-size video communication
significantly increased social presence.

Both audio and videoconferencing systems have received a substantial amount
of attention in social presence literature, mainly in the context of
professional, work-related meetings and computer-supported collaborative
work (CSCW) (Greef, IJsselsteijn, 2001). Participants are placed in
situations with video-windows on a desktop system, or on adjoining
monitors, working on shared applications that are shown simultaneously on
each screen.

In the current project we are interested in assessing the experiences of
two different kind of groups (people alone at location versus group of
friends at other location) in the interaction with a system that enhances
social presence. The activity people share in this project is relatively
new in the application field; watching television. Moreover, group
attraction is introduced and analysed. Several questions are answered,
like; 'does the single person benefit more of the social presence
enhancement than group viewers?', or, 'is the single viewer more part of
the group when they receiver more information about the other location?'.
More questions and results are discussed in the results paragraph. Based on
literature we expect that the visualization with more information will
cause more social presence than the sketch visualization.


Use of requirements concerning the different domains

This paragraph describes the (road to the) visualization that is designed;
requirements will be pointed out, and ideas for visualizations will be
given, finally the final visualization is discussed.

In the current study we take the issues that we encounter in the different
domains into account. Since the environment at hand is the home, it is
important that we do not invade in people's privacy. Another important
aspect we keep in mind is the facts that we do not want to disturb the
activity people engage in, and it is important that social presence with
remote people is achieved. The demand on attention should be minimised as
well. The context of the experiment and the visualization that is used to
connect the users at the two locations is described as follows.

The scenario described earlier can be used as a description of the context;
"It is Friday evening, 20.00 o'clock. Bob, John and Max have gathered
at Bob's. Tonight it is going to happen; the important football match
is about to take place, and they are going to enjoy it together. They
are sitting on a couch in the living room in front of the tube.


300 kilometres up north in a living room, Eric is sitting alone on his
couch. He is thinking about his friends who are going to watch the
same match together. If only he lived closer, then he would join them
as well."

To summarize, the requirements concerning the system:
Enhance social presence
No audio (too disturbing to main activity (and has been done in
other studies))
Low on attentional requirements (should be calm/in the
background)
Keep in mind privacy matters (info displayed only for friends)
Synchronous system is needed, both sides have to be able to
interact freely (both sides are able to 'send and receive'
information, they both see each other)
Co-temporality; both sides can interact at every point in time
(there is no particular point in time where it is possible to
interact, people are interacting on the same time with each
other)
Simultaneously; both sides have to be able to interact
simultaneously (they have to be present at the same time,
otherwise the real-time interaction is not realistic)

The road to the visualization

With the requirements in mind, different ideas for the visualization were
generated. Visualization refers to the information that the different
locations receive about each other. Different ideas for generating and
displaying the visualization are thought of. It is possible to use
different kind of information to represent the 'status' of the other
person. Some interesting information sources in this context are:
How many people are at the other location?
Who is at the other location?
What is/are the(se) person(s) doing?
Do they react on me?
How much activity is going on?
Are they engaged in the same activity as I?
Are people moving?
Are people talking? If yes, to whom, what are they saying?


There are different ways to represent the activity of people or the
identity of various people. For example, different colours can be used to
indicate different levels of activity. Different avatars in the
visualization or different objects can be used to represent different
users. Different modalities can be used to indicate different information.
More research is needed to investigate what modality is suited best for
what kind of information.

In this project it is chosen to use the amount and nature of movements of
the different locations as information to visualize. Images or the activity
at one location are captured by a camera and either displayed as they are
(full video) or processed with software to produce silhouette like images.
These visualizations will be displayed in the environment of the TV screen
while people are watching the program on TV. This way it is possible to
stay aware of the activities/movements of the other persons. Again, there
are different possibilities to design these visualizations in the system.
Some ideas are displayed below as rough sketches.

Some ideas for visualizations

The visualization can be displayed as part of the screen as a kind of a
border around the images of the TV program. It holds again that different
representations can be used to provide different kind of information. More
intensive colours can be used for more persons, different textures for
different people, certain animation/movements of images to represent audio
levels, etc.




The visualization can be created at one of the corners of the screen. It is
possible that the user has the possibility to change it according to
his/her preferences.



The visualization can be designed as well in another way where you actually
see the people that you are interacting with in your screen. Different
things can be used to represent the interaction partner; e.g. abstract
representations, static pictures, or live video images. The face(s) of the
interaction partner (s) can be directed towards or away from you. In the
example it looks like people are watching with you because of the fact that
the faces are directed towards the screen and not towards you. It has to be
tested of course how people react on this and find out what their
preferences are in this context. Possibly the size of the screen can be
adjusted, so that the user can choose what is more important for his at
that specific time (the program he is attending to or the communication
partners).



The visualization that we choose for in this project looks like the
following. The visualization of the others is displayed on the surface
above the TV screen. Two different kind of visualization are used in this
project; a full video connection (no audio), and a visualization that looks
like a silhouette like sketch of the people in front of the camera. This is
no abstract representation like the examples above; the movements visible
in the visualization are the movements of the persons that are interacting
with each other.




Controlling the level of presence

From literature it can be said that people prefer different levels of
social presence depending on the task that they are performing. For
example, for emotionally loaded tasks, more social presence is preferred
than in formal tasks were factual information is communicated. In addition,
it may be the case that people prefer a certain level of social presence
with their partner than with their mother in law for example. The design of
future social presence should enable users to somehow control this level of
social presence. Besides different levels for different persons or
situations, it is possible that people have different preferences
concerning levels of received and sent social presence. It can be that the
user preferences for the received versus send level of social presence
differ. This can be a research question in future experiments.

Two ideas for metaphors or concepts that can be used for manipulating
social presence can be the following.
Social presence can be thought of as a sort of bridge that connects
different users. On the one side there is Bob, on the other side his
friends. It is possible to make the interface of a social presence system
look like a bridge on which the involved users are displayed at both ends.
The user is possible to move his avatar or picture in different directions.
Moving the avatar more towards the other users can represent an increase in
social presence, a decrease in social presence can be achieved by moving
Bob's representation away from the others. Moreover, different kind of
bridges can be chosen as a kind of different road to take to reach your
friend. Depending on the kind of bridge you take, the social presence
characteristics will be chosen. For example a broad bridge can convey a lot
of information about the different sides. Of course, it is possible to
generate lot of ideas to visualise this. However, it is important that
knowledge is available on the different kind of information that is desired
in what situation.
Another way to represent the different amounts of social presence
might be to consider the social presence concept as a window concept
(comparable with the TeleWindows concept). In front of the window there are
curtains, which can be opened and closed, representing the amount of
information that is conveyed to the other side. Different windows in
different rooms can represent connections to various people or locations.
One can enable the user to make new windows in the house (drag and drop),
meaning making new social presence connections with people. The curtains
can be customised according to the users preferences. Different textures
can show for example the kind of information they are conveying. For
example a clef can represent that audio is used, where as a camera shows
that video is used. Again, the statement holds that more knowledge is
needed in order to be able to give suggestions about the information that
should be used.

In the current project the idea of enabling users to control the level of
presence is not implemented. This is not the focus of the project. The
focus of the project is to investigate the effects of the amount of
information on social presence and on group attraction. The project is not
a design assignment, but a research oriented project. The experimental
design that is used is described in the next paragraph. Besides the
hypothesis that is tested, other information is collected as well. Data is
gathered about the use of the TV, preferences/ advantages/ disadvantages in
the different systems used, desires of people concerning the different
topics (e.g. social presence, watching TV). The experimental design is
explained in the next paragraph.


Experimental Design


Problem statement

Despite the range of communication technologies available today, it is felt
that people between different home environments have a need to maintain
relationships with members that are spatially distributed. Social
interaction requires signals; ways of letting others know our actions and
intentions.

The goal of the experiment is to obtain knowledge about social presence in
the home context and to study the effect of different visualizations on
social presence and group attraction. Social presence is the feeling of
being socially together. Does the experience of social presence vary
depending on the amount of information people receive about their friends?
Is there a difference in the experience of social presence and group
attraction between the people who are alone versus part of a group? Is a
minimal representation of information enough to establish a sense of
presence? As explained earlier group attraction can be described as the
degree to which an individual desires to identify with and be an accepted
member of the group. Is there a relationship between social presence and
group attraction? Is it possible to achieve a higher group attraction when
one is able to increase the level of social presence? We are interested in
whether the group attraction changes when the feeling of being together
(social presence) changes.

A group of 3 friends (a primary group) is split (2-1) and hosted in two
different rooms in a home environment. We choose for friends because we
deal with the home environment, which is a place were you interact with
people you know. The idea of splitting the group into two groups of
different sizes is new. It is now possible to study the
differences/similarities of the variables on the different groups. It can
be that single viewers benefit more from social presence like applications
than group viewers do for example. Moreover, it is a rather realistic
situation that one person is not able to join the rest of the group. In the
experiment, the persons are watching an involving football match 'together'
from different locations (the living room and another room). They do not
know that they are in the same building. While people watch the match,
visual information about the activities of their friends at the other
location is displayed above the TV screen. Movements of the persons are
captured by a camera and projected above the screen of the person on the
other location.

Each room is equipped with a large TV screen that shows simultaneously the
same football match, a camera that captures movements/activity of the
people sitting in front of the screen, and a projector that displays the
captured visualization of the activity of the other room on the wall above
the TV screen. The visualization can be of two different kinds, a
silhouette like visualization and a full video visualization. We choose for
these two because it enables us to make a difference in the amount of
information people receive about each other. The first is a processed
degraded quality of video and looks like a silhouette of the person(s) in
the other room. The visual information is filtered in order to provide some
information about the other's activities, but not in an intrusive way. The
visual information is blurred in a way and provides enough information to
give people who are engaged in the program a sense of awareness about the
remote location. In the full video condition, the quality of the video is
high and people can see detailed images. We use these differences to check
whether less information is able to establish a sense of social presence.
Lower bandwidth is required in the case of less information.

Besides the controlled experiment, more descriptive data is acquired as
well. Different questions in the questionnaires addressed other questions
as well. This is done to get a better idea of other factors as well. For
example, it is interesting to check what kind of communication technologies
people use today and what they would like to use in the future. Moreover,
with how large a group do people prefer to watch TV, what kind of programs
do they prefer to watch alone versus in company of others. This and other
information is discussed in the result section after the results of the
experiment. This information was elicited by means of questionnaires. These
questionnaires are developed for this project. All the questionnaires that
are used in this project are tested before using them in the (pilot) tests.
It can be that users interpret items differently than intended by the
experimenter. To tackle this problem, all questionnaires are tested and
adjusted.

1 Description of the Experiment


Setting

The experiment is done in the HomeLab (at Philips Research Eindhoven).
HomeLab is a future home-simulation, a test laboratory that looks like a
normal house and thus provides us with a 'natural situation' to test the
behaviour of the participants in the different conditions. We choose for
this setting because we are interested in the home environment. The target
group we are interested in are groups of friends who want to share an
activity with each other. Watching television is often done at home. For
the participants the inner part of the HomeLab resembles a real house.

Participants

In total 34 participants take part in the experiment in groups of 3 persons
who know each other. Participants are Dutch friends (no love relationships)
who like to watch football. These friends are divided (2-1) and placed in
two different rooms. Considering the interest in football, the subjects are
male persons. The age range of the participant is from 18-38, the average
age is 24,9 years. The socio-economical status of the participants is
divers, around half of the participants were employed, half of them is a
student. The occupations and/or backgrounds are very divers, ranging from
medical backgrounds to economical, technical and chemical backgrounds.

Conditions

The interest in this experiment is in the effect that of different levels
of visual information might have on social presence and group attraction.
Four conditions can be distinguished in the experiments that vary the
amount of information about the different locations. The information both
locations receive is synchronized all in the visual channel. Audio is not
included, previous studies showed that audio does have an effect on social
presence. We are more interested in the possibilities of the visual
channel. The design of the experiment is depicted in the figure 3 below.

"Single "1 "2 "3 "
"viewer " " " "
"Sequence of "
"conditions is "
"counterbalance"
"d "

"Group Viewer"1 "2 "3 "


Figure 3. Design of Experiment

First two kinds of viewers can be distinguished; single (only one person at
remote location) and group viewer (part of the 2 person group). It happens
that one person is at one location, and his friends are at another. This
friend would like to be the remote group as well. This group viewer
condition is a between subjects condition. The other three conditions are
implemented as within subjects conditions in which every subject receives
every condition. The different conditions are the control condition, a
sketchy visual condition and finally the full video condition. As explained
earlier, we are interested in the question whether lesser information is
able to evoke a sense of social presence as well as the full video
possibility. Movement is an important aspect of the behaviour of people, it
displays what people are doing and where. Obviously, some important
elements (such as facial expressions) lack in the sketch condition, yet are
present in the full condition.

In the control condition people are watching the same match on TV at remote
locations. However, the persons do not see any visualizations above their
TV screen. They are told that their friends are watching the same match
simultaneously. This condition serves as a baseline to compare the
different visualizations. It can very well be the case that people
experience a certain level of social presence when they know about each
other that they are engaged in the same activity at a certain moment.

Another condition is a sketchy visual condition; where people are watching
the game on the TV screen from remote locations. The processed visual
representation of the person (s) in the other location is projected on the
wall behind the screen/on the screen. This representation is a black and
white (silhouette-like) image (see figure 4) that is up-dated in real time
when there is a change in movement.

" "


Figure 4. Sketch-like visualization

In the third condition people see full video of their friends while they
are watching the match. In this visualization, more detail is depicted and
the people in the visualization are always visible. This is contrary to the
sketchy visualization, where people only see silhouettes when there is a
change in activity.

The trials are counterbalanced to avoid any potential sequence effects.
Every group gets to see the same match to prevent any effect from
differences in games. The test setting is a natural home environment,
drinks are provided during the test to create a nice atmosphere.

Independent variable

The independent variable is the amount of visual information. The different
conditions differ from no visual information to silhouette like information
to full video.
The group setting is an independent variable as well. People are placed in
either the single viewer 'group' (1 person) condition or the group viewer
condition (2 persons together). Every participant is subjected to all the
three levels of visual information.

Dependent variables

Social presence is the factor that is measured. The perceived level of
social presence is measured after each condition by use of a questionnaire.
This questionnaire is adapted from the IPO-SPQ (IPO Social Presence
Questionnaire) (de Greef, and IJsselsteijn, 2001). The IPO_SPQ makes use of
two approaches to measure social presence. It uses the semantic
differential items from Short, Williams and Christie that measures more
affective qualities of the medium. Next to these semantic differential
items, the IPO-SPQ includes subjective attitude statements (based in
theory) about the experience using a 7-point agree-disagree scale. The
questionnaire that is used was developed for the current experiment used
the items from the semantic differential, excluding two items that scored
insufficiently in the reliability analysis. The items from the subjective
attitude scale were adapted to the current project in discussion with one
of the authors of the IPO-SPQ.

Another dependent variable is the level of Group attraction experienced by
the subjects. This is measured by the Group Attitude Scale (Evans & Jarvis,
1986) after each condition. The Group Attitude Scale (GAS) measures group
attraction. Group attraction is defined as: 'an individual's desire to
identify with and be an accepted member of the group' (Evans (1986). The
GAS is composed of an equal number of positive and negative statements to
guard against response set. The GAS is in English originally. Considering
the fact that the participants are Dutch-speaking persons, this
questionnaire was carefully translated. Different translators with the
following procedure were asked to translate the questionnaire. First both a
native and non-native speaker translated the questionnaire from English to
Dutch, and secondly, again a native and non-native speaker translated the
items from Dutch to English. This activity resulted in two 'new'
questionnaires, which were compared with the original to see whether there
was a difference in wording and meaning. The analysis resulted in changing
one word in the 'new' Dutch version of the questionnaire. The questionnaire
was tested again with a Dutch person to see whether there were any
misunderstandings that we did not see ourselves.
(An example of the different questionnaires that are used for the
experiment can be found in appendix 3).

It is interesting to see whether social presence and group attraction co-
vary depending on the nature of the amount of information. Before the
experiments are run, pilot tests are done to check assumptions, and
eventually change or adapt the visualizations if it appeared that it did
not work properly.


1 Pilot Tests


Pilot 1: 'perception of activity'

The assumption is that because of the fact that (movement/activity)
information is presented in the periphery of the user's view it will be
visible to the person without having to move his/her head. Visual
information is presented in the area above the TV screen. The field of view
of humans is limited, so the location of the information relative to the
observer is important. In the field of view, two different areas can be
discriminated: the foveal area and the peripheral area. The fovea is
critical in visual perception. Whenever you 'look' directly at a target,
the eyes are rotated so that the image of the target falls on the foveal
region. However, the periphery is particularly sensitive to motion
information.
It is assumed that staying aware of the activities in the visualizations
while watching an involving TV program does not require too much attention.
The differences in the visualization will be the appearance and/or
differences of movement of the persons depicted in the scene. The questions
to be answered in this pilot test are:
"Do people perceive a change in activity when the visualization
is presented above the TV they are watching?"
"Do people extract the activity information from the
visualizations while the are paying attention to the program
they are watching on TV?"
During the test, visualizations are projected above the TV screen. The
subjects watch an involving program and are asked to pay attention to it,
in order to be able to answer some questions afterwards. After the program
the subjects are asked to fill in a questionnaire that addresses
information related to the visualization and the program they saw (e.g. was
the information meaningful, how many persons identified, what were they
doing). The subjects were two persons (one male, one female) in the same
age category as the participants in the experiment.
After analysing the results of the questionnaires, it appears that people
are able to make sense of the silhouettes they see most of the time. The
large movements are identified; smaller detailed movements were not always
identified. They can identify most of the movements that are made.
Moreover, it is possible to pay attention and switch between the two
resources (TV screen and visualizations). For the silhouettes it is more
difficult to monitor two sources at the same time than for example of the
full video. The full video provides more information about the other
person, which was preferred by the persons in the pilot test. People like
to see the environment the other person was in and the expressions of the
persons.

Pilot 2: 'level of activity'

Pilot test 2 is done in order to answer the following question:
Is there enough activity to visualize during a program; are
people moving enough, so that there is something to see in the
visualizations?

People were asked to watch TV. It was analysed if movement would be seen
during the game. It appears that people do make movements. These movements
are of two kind; reactions to certain events in the program and movements
that are directed to the interaction partner. At crucial moments in the
game people reacted on these on a spontaneous way (e.g. making waving
movements with their arms when a chance was wasted by a player). However,
sometimes, people tried to get into contact with the persons at the other
location, looking for interaction (e.g. looking in the direction of the
camera and waving).

In the next paragraph the descriptive results of the experiment will be
discussed.

Descriptive Information

In this paragraph the descriptive data will be discussed. This data comes
from a questionnaire filled in by the same participants (as the total
experiment).

Figure 5 below displays the amount of hours the participants watch
television a day. No person watches 0 hours television a day. 6 % of the
persons watched less than 1 hours. So, 94 % watched more than an hour
television a day.


Figure 5. The amounts of hours the participants watch television per day.

Most people watch television together with one person, who is most of the
times the partner (Figure 6). Only 6 % of the respondents watch TV alone.
This is a very low number, which may indicate that watching TV is a social
activity (many people in the sample had a partner, probably younger people
or elderly will watch alone).
Figure 6. With how many other persons do people watch TV?

Different drivers can be named for people for watching TV together with
other persons; the main drivers are the cosines or atmosphere when you are
together with other people, the second largest reason is the discussion
that is possible when people are together. People like to talk about the
things they see on the television. The figure below provides an overview of
the different drivers that were reported by the participants.


Figure 7. Drivers for people to watch TV together with other person

There is a difference in the kind of programs people prefer to watch alone
versus the programs people like to watch in presence of other people. This
is depicted in the figure below. People prefer to watch sport and movies
with others (they appreciate their reactions and company), whereas they
prefer to watch news and documentaries alone. They do not want to be
disturbed while concentrating these kinds of (serious) programs. For more
programs like sports games or movies people enjoy making a cozy atmosphere
and experiencing other people's reactions.

Figure 8. Comparison of programs people prefer to watch alone versus in
presence of others


Figure 7 shows the current use and desired future use of communication
technologies while people are watching TV. Currently people use the phone
often. From the first column it can be concluded that people want to
communicate with others at remote locations more than they do now.
Currently the web cam is not used at all, in the future 17 percent of the
people wish to use the web cam. Chat programs are desired as well.
Figure 9. Comparison of current communication and desired communication
while watching TV

Most people indicated that a system that showed visual information about
remote persons would enrich the interaction with their friends. The
questions were rated on a 1 to 7 Likert scale, ranging from 'totally
disagree' to 'totally agree'. People would like to have a system were they
can communicate or interact with each other over distance (reported value
on scale from 1-7 was 5.64). They prefer to see and hear the persons.

The participants reported several aspects that they found important in the
context of communicating with remote persons. These aspects are made
visible in figure 10. Most people value knowing the (emotional) reactions
of the other person, secondly people want to know the opinion of the other
person about the activity they are sharing. People's expressions were
valued often as well, moreover, many people would like to see what the
environment looks like at the other person's end, and activity related
issues e.g. 'what is he drinking?' In the cases that the respondents
mentioned audio and video as such this was placed in the corresponding
categories. In other cases, for example they stated communication, they did
not make explicit in what modality this should be.




Figure 10. Important aspect about other persons

Figure 11 shows the different activities people mentioned on the question
what kind of activities they would like to share with a person at another
location. Of all the named activities (100%), communicating was mentioned
in 30 % of the cases, followed by gaming (17%) and eating or drinking
together (17 %), watching TV was stated in 12 % of the total activities.
Other preferred activities were just having fun, cooking, doing the dishes
together, and listening or making music together.

Figure 11. Activities people prefer to share to different locations

Table 7 discusses the two visualizations that we used during the
experiment. As visible in the table, in both visualizations people would
like to add audio. People would like to communicate more about the activity
they are sharing. During the experiments people were using sign-like
language very often. They were trying to communicate in various ways; some
wanted to call the other, others were looking for pen and paper to write
text messages to get their message across if making signs by hand would not
satisfy. Expectations based on literature would suggest that adding audio
would increase social presence. People experienced the full video as more
valuable and nice than the sketch visualization. The sketchy visualization
does not always convey valuable information. Only if a person moves, the
silhouettes are visible. In some cases people were not very sure about the
movements the remote person was making. In communication, the action-
reaction principle is very important. Observing the people in the sketch
visualization makes clear that this principle is sometimes broken. People
had troubles with identifying the message, and did not know how to respond.
They saw that something was going on, but were not always able to identify
the behavior. Some people suggested that it might be better if the
silhouettes were "always on", and consisted of more detailed sketches. This
would probably solve the action-reaction problem. Overall, most people
thought that it did add up to the feeling of being together, however, some
reported that it did not add anything at all.

"Visuali"Advantages "Disadvantages "Missing "Comments "
"-zation" " "information " "
"Sketch "Some information "Not a continuous"Topic of "More visual"
" "is given, you do "silhouette "conversation "details are"
" "not feel totally "Not always a "What do the "valued "
" "alone "real impression "friends look "Include "
" "Had some idea of "of what is going"like? "audio "
" "watching the match"on with friends "Clearer "If more "
" "together "Only two colors "images, more "sensitive "
" "Friends are closer"Impersonal, "detailed "to changes "
" "than without the "cold, not lively"representatio"more "
" "system "Not clear "n of other(s)"informative"
" "Single viewer is "No communication"Expressions/ ""Maybe nice"
" "involved "possible "emotions "for "
" "Provides a global "No sound "Detailed "baby-sittin"
" "impression about "There is "reaction "g" "
" "the (des) interest"movement needed "Ambiance at " "
" "of other person "to see "other " "
" "Something new "something, which"location " "
" " "is not always "Ability to " "
" " "present "chat " "
" " "You need to move"Contact " "
" " "in order to show" " "
" " "them something " " "
" " "Disturbing at " " "
" " "some moments " " "
" " "Too less " " "
" " "information " " "
" " "Boring " " "
"Full "Feeling of being "No sound "Ability to "Consider "
" "together despite "Sometimes "chat "placement "
" "of distance "difficult to "Topic of "of "
" "Fits in home "make contact "conversation "visualizati"
" "environment "when others are "Would be nice"on (maybe "
" "Clear image "focused on game "to see what "too high, "
" "Reactivity high "Sometimes it is "the other "to far "
" "Colors "distracting "sees of you "away, might"
" "Environment of "Quality of image"Would be nice"be less "
" "others is visible "can be better "if you would "distracting"
" "Ability to monitor" "be able to "if part of "
" "activities " "zoom in/out "screen/spli"
" "Visual reactions " "Would be nice"t screen) "
" "Good idea of " "if you are "Ability to "
" "feelings of others" "able to "turn if off"
" "Clear interaction " "switch the "if it is "
" "with each other " "system on/off"too "
" "Ability to react " " "distracting"
" "on each other " "Ability to "Nice if "
" "Lively " "switch "somebody is"
" "Always on " "between "sick/cannot"
" "Real time " "friends "leave a "
" "interaction " " "room for "
" " " " "medical "
" " " " "reasons "


Table 5. Advantages and disadvantages of two visualizations (sketch and
full video)


The next paragraph discusses the results of the experiment.

Results

Analysis of the data by means of the General Linear Model for repeated
measures in SPSS 11.0 revealed the following effects to be significant:

Effect of condition on Social presence experience F (2) = 119.2, p =
0.000
Effect of condition on Social presence by medium F (2) = 36.7, p =
0.000
Effect of condition on Group Attraction F (2) = 8.7, p = 0.000

All three effects are in the expected direction.
Table 11 indicates the effect of condition on the experience of social
presence. There is no significant difference between the different viewers.
Both single and group viewers experience the different conditions
similarly. The conditions were people saw the full visualization is higher
rated on social presence than either the sketch or the control condition.


Figure 11. Results about Social Presence experience

The second effect is the effect of condition on Social Presence of the
medium. Table 12 illustrates this effect.



Figure 12. Results for Social Presence of medium

Both kinds of viewers rate the Social Presence of the different media the
same. There is a difference between the social presence ratings for the
medium for the different visualizations. The full video visualization was
rated higher on social presence than both the single and sketch
visualization. There is no difference between the control and sketch
condition.

The effect of condition on group attraction is visible in figure 13.



Figure 13. Results for condition on group attraction

The effect of condition on group attraction is significant, there is no
difference between the viewers (F (2)=2.3, p = 0.112). The effect of the
different visualizations is the same for both kinds of viewers. The full
video visualization caused a higher group attraction compared to both the
control and sketch visualization. In the figure it is visible that there is
a difference between the viewers in the control condition and the sketch
visualization. The difference between the viewers is almost nothing in the
full visualization. Providing people with information about the rest of the
group gives them more attraction to the group.

All the effects described above remain significant when two covariates
(whether people saw the game and whether they knew the result) are taken
into account in the analysis.

Effect of condition on Social presence experience F (2) = 59.7, p =
0.000
Effect of condition on Social presence of medium F (2) = 25.6, p =
0.000
Effect of condition on Group Attraction F (2) = 5.1, p = 0.009

Besides both measures for social presence and group attraction, other
issues have been addressed in the questionnaire. For these items, the
following effects are present:

Effect of condition on fascinating interaction F
(1) = 39.7, p = 0.000
Effect of condition on feeling of being watched F (1) =
17.9, p = 0.000
Effect of condition on attention on visualization F (1) =
33.0, p = 0.000
Effect of condition on use of the system F (1) =
45.5, p = 0.000
Interaction effect "condition * kind of viewer" on use of the system
F (1) = 4.7, p = 0.038
Effect of condition on attention to TV F (1) = 20.3,
p = 0.000

For the following aspects, the effect is not significant:
Condition on negative distraction of visualization F (2) =
1.4, p = 0.249
Condition on attention of group viewer to friends in room F
(2)= 0.21, p = 0.813

Figure 14 shows the effect of condition on the aspect whether the
interaction was rated fascinating. The interaction during the full video
visualization was rated much more fascinating for both viewers.


Figure 14. Results for fascinating interaction


Figure 15 shows the result for the item about whether people felt being
watched. During the full video condition people felt more watched at them
at both the sketch and control conditions. There was no difference between
the kinds of viewers.



Figure 15. Results for "the feeling of being watched"


On the question whether people want to use the system, a difference is seen
between the conditions as well. The full video visualization scored
significantly higher than the sketch visualization. This is illustrated in
figure 17. Group viewers scored higher on wanting to use the full
visualization at home than the single viewers.



Figure 16. Results for "do you want to use the system at home?"

Both the sketch and the full video visualization were rated equally
distracting; this was the same for both viewers (see figure 18).



Figure 17. Results for negative distraction of visualization


There is no difference in the attention group viewer devote to the friends
in the same room over the different visualizations (F (2)= 0.21, p =
0.813).

People devoted more attention to the television during the sketch
visualization than they did in the full video condition (see figure 18).



Figure 18. Attention people devote to the TV

Three questions were included in the questionnaires that were not subjected
to statistical analysis, yet they provide valuable data. The questions were
the following for the single and group viewer:

"Single viewer questions "Group viewer questions "
"Did you feel left out? "Did you have the feeling that "
" "your friend was left out? "
"Did you feel alone? "Did you have the feeling that "
" "your friend would feel alone? "
"How often did you have the "How often did you have the "
"feeling that your friend really "feeling that your friend really "
"belonged to the group? "belonged to the group? "

These questions can not be compared statistically because they do not
measure the same aspects. The group viewer is asked to imagine how the
single viewer would feel, whereas the own feelings of the single viewers
are asked. Comparing the different means on the questions can give some
insight about how the group viewer thinks about the situation of the single
viewer and compare this with the reported situation by the single viewer.
Figures 19, 20 and 21 illustrate the differences. It seems that the group
viewer thinks that the single viewer is more left out than reported by the
single viewer. The group viewer thinks that the single viewer feels
lonelier than actually reported by the single viewer. On the question about
belonging to the group, the estimation of the group viewer is similar to
the impression single viewers give.



Figure 19. Additional question; single viewer feels left out?



Figure 20. Additional question; single viewer feels alone?




Figure 21. Additional question; single viewer belonged to group?

The next paragraph will discuss these results and interpret the data.

Discussion

People have the feeling that they are socially together when they are
watching television from different locations in the full video condition.
In the case of the sketch visualization this feeling is for both viewers
much lower. When taking the knowledge (having seen the game or not; knowing
the final result of the game) people have about the game into account,
these effects remain the same; the richer the medium, the more socially
together people (both viewers) feel. This is in line with the literature;
the more rich the medium, the more social presence people with experience.
This finding can have implications for developing calm technology. A
balance has to be found to use both the correct kind and correct amount of
information to base the technology on. In this study it appears that the
sketch visualization is not able to elicit a high degree of social
presence. Apparently basing the visualizations on movement and presenting
them as silhouettes of the persons is not enough to enable the people to
feel socially together. More research is needed to investigate what the
ingredients are needed to design yet calm technology increase social
presence. It might be the case that showing the silhouettes continuously
increases social presence; this has to be tested to check if this is
actually the case.

There is no difference in the experience of social presence between the
viewers. This means that the single viewer feels socially together with the
persons at the other location despite the physical distance between them
and the isolation of the single viewer. The full visualization is able to
create a feeling of being together for the single and for the group viewers
that is not significantly different between the viewers. Both kind of
viewers benefit equally from the richer medium.

Both measures of social presence indicate the same trend; the full
visualization is considered better in increasing the feeling of being
socially together than the sketch visualization.

In the case of the full visualization people are more attracted to the
group. They identify more with the group and a more accepted member of the
group then they do in the sketch or control condition. Providing people
more information about the interaction partner elicits a higher attraction
to group for both the single and group viewer. Single viewers feel more
part of the group and more accepted when they are in the full video
condition. This result is important; with rich communication technology it
is possible to change the way people feel part of the group. By means of
introducing technology, it is not needed anymore that people are alone in a
communication situation feel isolated in comparison with people that are
physically together.

People find the interaction with the full video visualization much more
fascinating than the sketch visualization. There is no difference between
the different viewers. This is probably because interaction is much more
meaningful in the full video condition. People receive more detailed
information about each other and are able to use the action re-action
principle. People can see and identify the movements of the interaction
partner, and use their movements to send their message across. In the
sketch visualization this is much harder and limited to basic movements of
for example the arms (e.g. waving). Interpreting facial expressions is not
possible in the sketchy visualization either.

People feel more being watched in the full condition compared to the
sketchy visualization. The score is relatively low (around 4 on a scale of
7) in the full visualization condition, yet there is a significant
difference with the sketch condition (around 2). Both the single and group
viewers feel more "watched at" in the full video condition, but this score
is not high, so they did not feel awkward.

People want to use full visualization at home; they do not want to use the
sketch visualization at home. The group viewers are more positive about
the full video visualization than the single viewers. This is not in line
with the expectation. It was expected that the single viewer would be more
enthusiastic about a system that would give the opportunity to feel
socially together with remote persons. The results indicate the contrary;
the group viewers are more enthusiastic about the system. A possible
explanation for this result is that the group viewers are with 2 persons in
a room and thus are able to share their enthusiasm. The single viewer is
alone in a room and is not able to talk about his opinions with anyone. The
group viewers might mutually increase their enthusiasm, whereas the single
viewer is viewing alone and does not have the chance of "catching" some of
the others enthusiasm.

Both visualizations are equally distracting for both viewers. The average
scores for both visualizations for both viewers are relatively low (around
3.5-4), indicating that people are not that much distracted by both
visualizations.

Group viewers devote as much attention to their friends in the same room in
both conditions.

People devote more attention to the television during the sketch
visualization than they did in the full video condition. A possible
explanation for this result is that the sketch visualization was not
interesting enough, and people directed their attention more to the TV. In
combination with the result of the sketch visualization not being very
fascinating, and both visualizations not being very distracting, this could
very well be the reason for the increased attention to the television in
the sketch visualization.

It appears that the group viewer overestimates the degree that the single
viewer feels alone, and left out of the group. The group viewer thinks the
single viewer is lonelier and feels more left out than the single viewer
reports him selves. This might be because the group viewers are able to
talk and have more interaction than is visually visible. The single viewer
sees of course that the group viewers are talking, but does not know about
what. The group viewers know what the single viewer is missing.







Conclusions

It appears that the full video visualization is able to achieve a high
degree of social presence. This holds for both kind of groups; single
viewers and group viewers. People find the full visualization more a
richer medium. Richer in this context means more personal, emotional,
reactive, friendly, warmer. In addition the experience people had during
the interaction during the full visualization was of more social presence.
This means that people had a higher experience of being socially together.
Aspects like having the impression of sharing an activity, receiving enough
information about the other, actually having a meeting, are important in
this context. The sketchy visualization is not rich enough to increase the
feeling of social presence for both kinds of viewers.

When people receive more information about their interaction partner by
means of for example a full video visualization, they are more attracted to
the group then in a situation where they do not receive any information
about the other or too less information. People, who would like to interact
with individuals at a distance, benefit from rich communication
technologies. When using rich communication technologies, the single feels
the same towards the group as the single viewer, even though he is alone
and isolated at a distance. Single viewers more with the group and feel a
more accepted member of the group. This can have implications for the
duration of being a member of the group, attending meetings or get together
of the group, and the attitude towards the group.

The interaction with the full visualization is more fascinating than the
sketch visualization. People prefer the full visualization to the sketch
one and moreover express their desire for an extension of this system by
means of adding sound to it. People consider watching television as a
social activity where aspects as cosines, discussion about the program, and
being together are key elements. According to the participants, sound is a
very important element in this context. They have the opinion that a
communication system where you are able to see your friends or family,
engaged in the same activity as you, would enrich the interaction with
their peers.

Both measures for social presence that are used in this study indicate the
same trend. More research is needed however to develop an instrument for
social presence that is valid and applicable to a broad domain.


5 Recommendations

The sketch visualization might score better on social presence and group
attraction when the silhouettes of the persons are visible continuously
instead of apparent only when there is a change in movement. People
reported that they would prefer an 'always on' sketch over this current
version in the context of watching television. This way, they think that
they get more valuable information and a better understanding of what the
person is doing. Moreover, it would be less distracting when the sketches
were visible all the time. When something changes in the current
visualization, they are immediately focused on it, whereas it might be
easier to neglect it when it is on always.

Looking from the goal of increasing social presence, adding audio would
probably increase social presence in both cases. Social presence would then
be highest in the combination full video plus audio.

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Appendices:

Generated research questions in first phase of project
Figures
Questionnaires used (what questions inserted, what out?)








Appendix Research questions Generated at first phase of project

General
1. What is presence? What are the degrees of presence?
2. How to create presence in a mediated environment?
3. What factors influence the concept of presence? How do these factors
influence presence? Which factors are most important?
4. Can these factors be manipulated to control the degree and nature of
presence?
5. What need does presence (need to) fulfil?
6. What are the causes and effects of presence?
7. Why do we desire/need a sense of presence?
8. What are the minimal necessary ingredients to achieve presence?
9. In what manner can shared spaces enhance the social component of
presence?
10. When do users experience the interaction with a human and when is the
interaction artificial?
11. Do users want control of presence (presence-regulator) when
interacting with others? What factors should be in control to
manipulate presence?
12. What is the effect of social presence on memory/vividness? Are things
remembered as well/bad as real presence situations?
13. Do we want the possibility of a track of history of interactions with
social presence? Do we want the possibility to show previous
interaction, store personal files, share them, use them in other
environments, with other people? What will be the result of being able
to store the interactions?
14. What behaviors emerge (in a group, or between individuals) where
social presence is created between people in different environments?
15. Maximal presence equals optimal presence? In what situations does this
hold true/untrue?
16. What factors play a role in this emerging (group) behavior?
17. What (kind of) devices/applications are essential parts of the social
environment?


Personal
18. Is the level of presence people like to 'receive' equal to the level
of presence like to 'give'?
19. Do people want control over the amount of social presence received and
send?
20. How to cope with conflicting desires for the level of social presence
between interaction partners?
21. There is a paradox between individualism and connectedness. How to
shape social presence in such a way that belonging to a community
enables the persons to keep their own identity and autonomy?
22. When and how to identify the desired balance between being connected
and freedom?
23. In what condition is a person present? What are the
important/necessary characteristics of a person that makes somebody
socially present?
24. People are looking for identity, how can we shape 'social presence' so
that identity is reflected during communication/interaction?
25. Is there a relation between the degree of social presence and the
ability to show identity?
26. How to represent the different identities in remote locations?
27. People adapt and learn in varies situations. How to use presence for
different 'kind' of users? Experts versus novices in the use of social
presence? Adapt to previous encounters (with particular
persons/environments/systems)?
28. What do people (want to) get out of social presence? What is the
"main" goal, or the underlying desire?
29. What is influence of smell and touch on social presence? In what
situation smell and touch enrich the social interaction, when is it
not desired?
30. Are there any differences in the experience/need for social presence
between:
a) Men/women
b) Situations (e.g. work, travel, home, hobby, sport)
c) Young/older people
d) Seasons
e) Cultures
f) Personality differences
g) Places
h) Times of the day
i) Kind of mood
j) Different generations



Interaction with other people
20. What will be the effect of creating social presence on the traditional
means of communicating/interacting?
21. People are seeking for establishing and belonging to communities. Yet,
people need a certain amount of freedom in relationships. How to fit
social presence optimally in such a way that freedom is ensured, but
people experience the community? How to design social presence for the
instinct of community and the desire to be free?
22. Communities form around specific standards, traditions, opinions.
People can be part of different communities simultaneously. Do
differences in the need for presence exist over different communities?
23. How to find a balance between freedom and connectedness?
24. What is the relation between 'virtual social presence' and 'real life
social presence'? How do they interact/influence each other?
25. When a person is physically present, which characteristics are most
important in the social interaction? Can we use these characteristics
to mimic social presence?
26. How can we/do we influence presence by varying the nature of
communicative acts (sender, message, medium, receiver, feedback)? How
do these components influence the level of social presence? What are
possible interrelationships?
27. What is the effect of giving users the ability to control their
identity during the interaction?
28. What is the minimal level of social presence needed for acceptable
/satisfying social interaction?
29. When looking at existing communication media, what are the factors
that appeal to users, and how can we use them in order to enhance
presence in order to increase their goal?
30. What is the effect of social presence on In-group identification (the
degree to which people see themselves as being a member of the group)?
31. Does the effect of and the need for social presence vary across the
levels of relationship? (e.g. compare a first impression and the
importance of visual cues with an existing relationship and the higher
level knowledge persons have about each other)



Activity
32. What activities can be supported by social presence, in what context,
what form?
33. What is the relationship between the kind of task and the need for
social presence? (e.g. emotional interaction, communication, information
exchange, negotiation)



Contextual
34. How to recognize the nature of the current community and how to adapt
social presence in an appropriate way?
35. How to represent the presence of users in a certain environment? How to
cope with differences between users (e.g. differences in personality,
preferences)? How to perceive and adapt to these differences?
36. Can we adapt 'the level and nature' of presence according to specific
situation/environment (and to the users in that environment)?
37. What aspects of the environment are considered valuable for creating
social presence?
38. How can we create adaptive/responsive/personal social presence in
environments?
39. What information should the environment have in order to adapt the
level of social presence?
40. Are different levels of social presence are needed in different
environments? (home environments, working environments, security, medical
environments, educational environments, etc.) What (inter)relation(s)
exists?
41. How can we integrate (new systems for) presence with existing 'systems'
or aspects of the environment?
42. What (existing) aspects in an environment can aid in achieving social
presence? What aspects of an environment have to be created/simulated in
order to achieve a desirable level of social presence?
43. Is there a relation between the familiarity of the location and the
experience of social presence?
44. Can we use 'social presence' and the knowledge that systems/actors
receive from it in order to communicate with other devices/actors in the
environment or in other environments? (e.g. change the lighting
conditions when person X is talking to person Y, or adapt the odor that
is disposed in a room depending on communication partner, involve other
devices important in the house, change the medium of communication,
devote more attention to facial expressions when performing task B)
45. Applications that learns from nature of 'social presence' preferences
of members in group and respond to it accordingly (e.g. adjust the rate
of frames, quality of different media, feedback quantity/quality,
number/nature of visual cues like facial expressions, gestures, verbal
intonations, posture, total body)? What are important characteristics to
pay attention to?
46. What kinds of devices/applications/products in the home environment are
valued most by people, and how can we use them to create social presence?
(Traditional aspects/habits/products are common/important in a domestic
environment; use might be valuable in the way to achieve social presence.
(E.g. fridge door, postbox, door handle, bell, floor mat (welcome), coat
rack)
47. Are objects, besides people, able to provide people valuable
information in the interaction/communication process in order to create
social presence?
48. What is the effect of different 'physical' characteristics of an
environment on the experience of social presence;
Light conditions
Temperature
Pressure
Texture

Appendix additional figures or tables of the descriptive study


As visible in the figure below, more than half of the participants did not
see the game. Some persons in the 'did see' bar saw parts of the game.
Figure 22. Number of persons who did and did not see the game

As figure below displays, more than half of the subjects did not know the
result of the match. Moreover, for those who did know the result in
advance, the match was interesting for the majority of the participants.
Many persons, who knew the result, were still highly involved in the game
until the very last second.
Figure 23. Result of match known by number of people




Appendix Questionnaires

Items in the Questionnaire that was administered before the experiment
(instructions are included, space for answering is removed here).

Deze vragenlijst bestaat uit een aantal vragen over verschillende
onderwerpen
(Kijken naar TV, de voetbalwedstrijd van Duitsland-Nederland 1974).

Bij sommige vragen wordt u gevraagd uw antwoord op te schrijven.
Soms kunt u een kruisje zetten in een van de vakjes voor de antwoorden.

Wanneer u het woord 'wedstrijd' tegen komt verwijst dit naar de
wedstrijd van Duitsland - Nederland in 1974.

1. Wat is uw leeftijd? … Jaar
2. Wat is uw achtergrond?
3. Heeft u de wedstrijd Duitsland – Nederland gezien die gespeeld is
tijdens het WK van 1974?
( Ja
Nee (ga naar vraag 5)


4. Hoe lang is dit geleden?
< dan 1 maand
< dan 1 jaar
< dan 5 jaar
Anders, namelijk: …


5. Weet u wat de uitslag van deze wedstrijd is?
( Ja, namelijk: Duitsland – Nederland: … - …
Nee


6. In welke mate beschouwt u zichzelf als een lid van deze groep
bekenden/vrienden?

"Zeer zwak "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Zeer sterk "

7. Hoeveel uur kijkt u gemiddeld naar de televisie per dag?
( 0 uur ( 5 tot 6 uur
( minder dan 1 uur ( 7 uur
( 1 tot 2 uur ( meer dan 7 uur
( 3 tot 4 uur
8. Met hoeveel mensen kijkt u meestal televisie?
( alleen ( ik en 4 personen
( ik en 1 persoon ( ik en 5 personen
( ik en 2 personen ( ik en meer dan 5, nl.
( ik en 3 personen
9. Naar wat voor een soort programma's kijkt u het liefst met anderen?
U kunt in totaal 100 punten verdelen over maximaal vier items. Schrijf de
desbetreffende getallen in de daarvoor bestemde vakjes.


"( Nieuws en actualiteiten "( Sport "( Documentaire "
"( Spelprogramma of quiz "( Film "( Serie "
"( Muziek "( Talkshow "( Anders, namelijk "
" " "......................... "

10. Met wie kijkt u graag samen televisie?

11. Welke aspecten van het samen televisie kijken zijn voor u belangrijk?

12. Naar wat voor een soort programma's kijkt u liefst alleen?
U kunt in totaal 100 punten verdelen over maximaal vier items. Schrijf de
desbetreffende getallen in de daarvoorbestemde vakjes.


"( Nieuws en actualiteiten "( Sport "( Documentaire "
"( Spelprogramma of quiz "( Film "( Serie "
"( Muziek "( Talkshow "( Anders, namelijk "
" " "......................... "

13. Waarom kijkt u net alleen naar deze programma's?

14. Maakt u wel eens gebruik van communicatie middelen tijdens het kijken
naar de TV?
Er zijn meerdere antwoorden mogelijk.
( Nee
( Telefoon (gesprek)
( SMS functie van Mobile telefoon
( Webcam
( Chat programma op internet
( Email
( Anders, namelijk: …………………………

15. Zou u gebruik willen maken van communicatie middelen in de toekomst
indien deze (goedkoop) beschikbaar zouden zijn?
Er zijn meerdere antwoorden mogelijk.
( Nee
( Telefoon (gesprek)
( SMS functie van mobile telefoon
( Webcam
( Chat programma op internet
( Email
( Anders, namelijk: …………………………





Dit is het einde van deze vragenlijst.
U wordt nu naar de verschillende lokaties gebracht om naar de wedstrijd te
kijken.

After Controle/Sketch/Full condition questionnaire. Items in the
Questionnaire that was administered after each condition during the
experiment (instructions are included, space for answering is removed
here). The questionnaire below is the questionnaire that was used for the
group viewers in the sketch and full video conditions. Questionnaires
have been adopted for the kind of viewer; single or group viewer. E.g. in
the questionnaire for the group viewer the word friend is used whereas
the questionnaire for the single viewer uses the word friends. Questions
about the system or visualization are not present in the questionnaire
that is administered after the control condition.

Concepts in the questionnaire:
Items 1-12 measure the experience of the participants of social
presence. It uses items from the IPO-SPQ that are adopted
specifically for this project.
Items 16-27 measure social presence of the medium, these items
come from the IPO-SPQ.
Items 41-60 measure Group Attraction and are the translated
items of the Group Attitude Scale.


Op de volgende pagina's vindt u een aantal vragen over de ervaring die u de
afgelopen twintig minuten heeft gehad tijdens het kijken naar de wedstrijd.


Er zijn geen goede of foute antwoorden, het gaat om uw persoonlijke mening.

Probeer niet te lang na te denken over de vragen,
maar probeer op uw eerste indruk of gevoel af te gaan ook wanneer sommige
vragen ongebruikelijk overkomen.

Bij sommige vragen kunt u het getal omcirkelen dat het beste past bij uw
beoordeling van
de sessie en de visualisatie (hetgeen u boven uw tv scherm gezien heeft).
Soms wordt u gevraagd uw antwoord op te schrijven.


"Omcirkel bij elk van onderstaande vragen het getal dat het beste past bij "
"uw persoonlijke beoordeling van de visualisatie of sessie als geheel. "
" "
"De term 'visualisatie' verwijst steeds naar hetgeen u boven uw "
"televisiescherm zag. "
" "
"Het woord 'vriend' verwijst naar de persoon die zich tijdens de sessies "
"niet in dezelfde ruimte bevind als u, tenzij anders vermeld. "
" "
"Wanneer u het woord 'reactie' leest bedoel ik hiermee de verandering die u "
"ziet in de visualisatie. "

1. Hoe vaak had u het gevoel een duidelijk idee te krijgen van de
activiteiten uw vriend?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


2. Hoe vaak herkende u de activiteit van uw vriend?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


3. Hoe vaak had u het gevoel dat u samen een activiteit (het samen kijken
naar de wedstrijd) deelde met uw vriend?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


4. Hoe vaak had u het gevoel dat u sociaal gezien samen was met uw vriend?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


5. Hoe vaak had u het gevoel daadwerkelijk een ontmoeting te hebben met uw
vriend?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


6. Hoe vaak leek het alsof uw vriend en uzelf samen waren in dezelfde
ruimte?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


7. Hoe vaak had u de neiging om dichter bij uw vriend te gaan zitten?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


8. Hoe vaak had u het gevoel te weinig informatie van u vriend te krijgen?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


9. Hoe sterk was u bewust van de afwezigheid van uw vriend?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


10. Hoe vaak was de reactie op spelmomenten van de ander toepasselijk?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


11. Hoe vaak was er een duidelijke relatie tussen een bepaalde activiteit
in de visualisatie en hetgeen er in de wedstrijd gebeurde?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


12. Hoe vaak kwamen de reacties van uw vriend overeen met uw eigen
reacties?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


13. Had u het gevoel dat uw vriend buitengesloten was?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "

14. Had u het gevoel dat uw vriend zich alleen zou voelen?
"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


15. Hoe vaak had u het gevoel dat uw vriend echt bij de groep hoorde?
"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "

"Omcirkel bij elk van onderstaande vragen het getal dat het beste past "
"bij uw persoonlijke beoordeling van de afgelopen sessie. "
"Nogmaals, denk niet te lang na over onderstaande vragen. "
"Het is belangrijk dat u uw persoonlijke mening weergeeft. "

16.
16.
"Onpersoonlij"1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Persoonlijk "
"k " " " " " " " " "
17.
"Ongevoelig "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Gevoelig "
18.
"Asociaal "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Sociaal "
19.
"Koud "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Warm "
20.
"Doods "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Levendig "
21.
"Saai "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Interessant "
22.
"Afstandelijk"1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Dichtbij "
23.
"Niet "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Emotioneel "
"emotioneel " " " " " " " " "
24.
"Onvriendelij"1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Vriendelijk "
"k " " " " " " " " "
25.
"Ontoegankeli"1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Toegankelijk"
"jk " " " " " " " " "
26.
"Niet "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Reactief "
"reactief " " " " " " " " "
27.
"Onnatuurlijk"1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Natuurlijk "


28. Hoe spannend vond u dit deel van de wedstrijd?

"Zeer saai "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Zeer "
" " " " " " " " "spannend "


29. Vond u de interactie met elkaar via het systeem boeiend?

"Zeer saai "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Zeer boeiend"


30. Zorgde de visualisatie voor een negatieve afleiding van de wedstrijd?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


31. Voelde u zich bekeken?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


32. Hoe vaak was uw aandacht gericht op de visualisatie?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


33. Hoe vaak was uw aandacht gericht op het televisiescherm?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


34. Hoe vaak was uw aandacht gericht op uw vrienden in dezelfde ruimte?

"Nooit "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Altijd "


35. Zou u thuis gebruik willen maken van zo'n systeem als dat verkrijgbaar
(en goedkoop) was?

"Zeer zeker "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Zeer zeker "
" " " " " " " " "niet "

36. Kunt u uw keuze van de vorige vraag toelichten?

37. Wat vond u positief aan het systeem?

38. Wat vond u negatief aan het systeem?

39. Wat zou u willen veranderen aan het systeem?

40. Welke informatie over/van uw vriend/situatie miste u?



" Omcirkel bij elk van onderstaande vragen het getal dat het beste "
"past bij uw gevoel over de hele groep wanneer u interactie heeft via de "
"visualisatie van de afgelopen sessie. "
"Denk nogmaals aan de visualisatie die u net zag. "

41. Ik wil lid blijven van deze groep.

"Totaal mee eens "1 "
"Detail van de informatie van silhouetten " "
"Visualisatie gebaseerd op bewegingen " "
"Achtergrond kleur bij silhouetten " "
" Plaats van de visualisatie (boven tv scherm). " "
"Snelheid van verandering van visualisatie " "
"Informatie over andere persoon op visuele manier " "
"gepresenteerd " "

1. Denkt u dat een systeem (waar u visuele informatie over de ander krijgt)
de interactie op afstand met uw naasten zou kunnen verrijken?

"Zeker niet "1 "2 "3 "4 "5 "6 "7 "Zeker"
" " " " " " " " "wel "


2. Wat wilt u graag weten van andere personen in de context van het samen
kijken naar de televisie?

3. Welke (huiselijke) activiteiten zou u graag samen willen doen met
personen die zich op een andere locatie verkeren?
Het is niet belangrijk of de techniek het mogelijk maakt, maar wat U
graag zou willen.

4. Met welke personen op andere locaties zou u graag het gevoel hebben dat
u sociaal gezien samen bent?

5. Welke aspecten tijdens de omgang met uw naasten op afstand zijn voor u
belangrijk?

6. Heeft u opmerkingen of suggesties?


Dit is het einde van het experiment.
Bedankt voor uw medewerking!








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Social Presence

Co- Presence

Physical Presence