Feeling in Sync: Reducing the Impact of Network Latency on Joint Rowing

Engaging in rhythmic synchronized activities such as dancing or coordinated exercises is a powerful driver of social connection, as interpersonal entrainment promotes feelings of closeness, empathy, and cooperation. However, in media-based settings such as Social Virtual Reality (SVR), maintaining synchrony is technically challenging. Even modest latency can disrupt the temporal coordination needed for shared rhythm, thereby diminishing social presence, user engagement and the quality of interaction. Our work explores whether synchrony-reinforcing feedback can mitigate latency effects in a dyadic VR rowing task. Participants received real-time visual, audio, or audio-visual feedback: visual feedback was provided through particle effects, and audio feedback through music, both of which intensified with stronger synchronization and diminished as it weakened. Latency was systematically varied. Our findings show that latency, especially higher delays, significantly disrupts coordination and a sense of togetherness. Participants often misattribute these disruptions to personal or interpersonal factors. Audio-visual feedback reduces these effects, supporting smoother interaction and masking symptoms of latency. The task load remains stable across latency levels, but decreases when clear, multimodal feedback is provided. Notably, while closeness remains robust, togetherness deteriorates in the absence of timely, multimodal cues. Our results suggest that latency effects can be partially addressed through perceptual design. Providing multimodal feedback is a key strategy for maintaining synchrony, reducing cognitive effort, and sustaining meaningful social interaction in latency-prone environments.