DiMicco, J. M., Hollenbach, K. J., Pandolfo, A., and Bender, W. (2007). The impact of increased awareness while face-to-face. Human-Computer Interaction, 22(1). [pdf]

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The experimental results presented in this paper demonstrates that a display showing real-time participation levels, imposing a norm of equal participation on a group, causes those at the hightst levels of participation to decrease the amount they speak. Reviewing the turn-taking patterns with a visualization causes those who spoke the least to increase the amount the speak in a subsequent discussion.

This paper presents Second Messenger, a system of dynamic awareness displays that reveal speaker participantion patterns in a face-to-face meetings, increasing indviducals’ awareness of their own and others’ participantion in discussion. Experimental results indicate that these displays influence the amount an individual participates in a discussion and the procerss of information ahsring used during a decision.making task. These findings suggest that awareness applications brings about systematic changes in group communication styles, highlighting the potential for such applications to be designed to improve group interactions.