How Digital Humans Will Revolutionize The Way We Communicate

One of the most interesting presentations at IP.4.IT was given by Jeremy Bailenson of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University.  The lab does experiments in how new, rich-media forms of communication will affect how humans interact with one another.  They set up various immersive virtual reality situations where two or more people communicate with computer-generated intermediaries, such as avatars. Lest you think this is just the stuff of science fiction, consider that the telephone or a video conference is a primitive form of such communication.

In their experiments, the lab would modify the avatar in various ways to see how it affected the nature of the conversation or the outcome of a negotiation.  Some of the more interesting results:

• People tend to like other people who have similar body language.  In one experiment, a person converse with an avatar who, with a 4 second delay, mimiced their own body motions.  Only 5% of the subjects noticed this trick, but all of them were more likely to agree with the other person or accept their proposal.


• Similar results were noted when the other avatar's gaze was directed towards the speaker.


• The lab built a device that allowed two people to shake hands via the network.  By capturing the data stream, the experimenter could play back a person's own handshake.  People who believed they were shaking hands with the other person but were really shaking hands with themselves were more likely to like the other person and treat them more softly in a subsequent negotiation.


• Shortly before the most recent US Presidential election, a sample of 200 people were shown photographs of Bush and Kerry.  They were divided into three groups.  The control group saw the original photographs, while the other two groups saw a blend of their own picture with either Bush or Kerry.  Proving the hypotheses that people like themselves the best, the non-control groups voted for the candidate that looked the most like the voter.


• In a distance-learning system, the teacher was shown a display of the other students in which the picture of any given student faded if the teacher looked at any one student less than the others.  This was demonstrated to improve teaching effectiveness.


• The subjects were shown their own avatar for 60 seconds in a "virtual mirror."  The experimenters made some people taller/shorter or more/less attractive.  The people who were made to see themselves as more attractive stood 1 meter closer and talked louder in subsequent meetings.  Those who were 1 decimeter taller did twice as well in subsequent negotiations.

Some interesting ways we could make people more effective in a video conference, or even a phone call.