For Better Video Conferencing, Try Taking Turns

At the start of the pandemic, video conferencing became the only way for many of us to work, socialize, see a doctor, or take a yoga class, among many other activities. Now, it has become an essential part of the work-from-home lifestyle. Two new studies from Stanford Medicine researchers have looked at whether we work, behave and feel differently in these virtual interactions compared to in-person interactions and what happens in our brains.

They found that while people generally worked equally effectively in both situations, online interactions tended to reduce a particular aspect of conversation known as turn-taking – switching speakers. In these virtual meetings, less taking turns was linked to less positive feelings about the interaction, the study finds. published April 5 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

“One of the mechanisms of how video conferencing changes the way we cooperate is by changing our speaking behavior,” said Stephanie BallerPhD, postdoctoral fellow at the laboratory of Allan ReissMD, Howard C. Robbins Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

In other paper recently published in Cerebral cortexthe researchers reported a follow-up finding.

They found a simple way to increase positive feelings about an interaction, whether in person or online: expressing appreciation for the other person. In fact, as two people exchanged appreciations (for their partner’s creative ideas, for example), neuroimaging showed that the parts of their brains involved in social cognition lit up in synchrony.

Balters is lead author and Reiss is lead author on both studies.

lab work

To mimic work interactions in a lab environment, the researchers paired up 72 participants. Half of the pairs met in person; the other half, on Zoom. Their interactions were recorded on video and audio, and their brain activity was monitored using wearable near-infrared functional spectroscopy neuroimaging, which measures changes in oxygenation to different parts of the brain.

Each pair was asked to collaborate on three work-related tasks that used different cognitive skills.

“We could have chosen all kinds of tasks, but because we wanted it to be applicable to the work environment, we chose a problem-solving task, a creativity task and an emotion-sharing task,” Balters said.

In the problem-solving task, researchers asked participants to identify the four most important traffic safety rules on US highways. In the creativity task, participants designed a solution to increase water conservation in California households. And in the emotion sharing task, they discussed when their needs were unmet and how they felt.

Before and after each task, the participants answered several surveys in which they recorded their own evaluation of their level of energy and stress, the performance of their duo on the tasks, their level of cooperation and their feeling of closeness with their partner. Next, the researchers reviewed the recordings of the interactions and gave an objective assessment of each pair’s performance on the tasks.

Take over

One difference in behavior stood out – virtual pairs took fewer turns to switch between speakers than in-person pairs. In other words, each person spoke longer before the other responded or interrupted.

“I think people can relate to that,” Balters said. “If you interrupt each other on Zoom all the time, it’s a little awkward, so it seems like people just take turns reducing this initiation.”

Pairs who took turns switching speakers reported a greater sense of cooperation and positive feelings about their subjective performance. These pairs also performed better on the tasks as assessed by the observing researchers.

“For virtual pairs, we saw a decrease in turn-taking and that’s actually a negative thing for their social interaction and task performance,” Balters said.

Perhaps in the absence of other cues like body language and facial expressions in the virtual environment, turn-taking has an outsized influence on how we perceive an interaction, Balters said.

Light up the brain

When the researchers studied the neuroimaging data, they found distinct patterns: during face-to-face interactions, the researchers observed the greatest interbrain coherence (when activity in two brains matched) during the task of sharing emotions, while virtual interactions generated more consistency during the problem. solving and creative tasks. More consistency isn’t necessarily better, Balters said, because it could just mean that the same parts of both brains are working harder. For example, if the auditory center of the brain lights up, it could simply mean that the partners are having trouble getting along.

The researchers also identified certain patterns of brain coherence linked to more turn-taking.

“Once we understand what’s going on in the brain with neuroimaging, we can develop better technological interventions,” Balters said. “We might be able to help video conferencing companies improve their systems with new features that make it easier to take turns and make brain activity as close to in-person interactions as possible.”

So far, researchers have tested a non-tech intervention. After completing the tasks, participants were asked to spend two minutes expressing their appreciation for their partner. The brief exercise had a great impact on brain activity.

“We found increased inter-brain coherence in many different areas of the brain associated with social cognitive processing,” Balters said.

Afterwards, both in-person and virtual pairs reported feeling more connected with their partners.

“This means that regardless of the forum, expressing gratitude to your partner is beneficial because it will increase your sense of connection,” Balters said.

Reader, thank you for taking the time to read this story.

picture by Alex du Rocher