Influence of Audiovisual Realism on Communication Behaviour in Group-to-Group Telepresence

Group-to-group telepresence systems immerse geographically separated groups in a shared interaction space where remote users are represented as avatars. Notably, such systems allow users to interact with collocated and remote interlocutors simultaneously. In this context, where virtual user representations can be directly compared with real users, we investigate how visual realism (avatar type) and aural realism (presence of spatial audio) affect communication. Furthermore, we examine how communication differs between collocated and remote pairs of interlocutors. In our user study, groups of four participants perform a collaborative conversation task under the aforementioned visual and aural realism conditions. Our results indicate that avatar realism has positive effects on subjective ratings of perceived message understanding and group cohesion, and yields behavioural differences that indicate more interactivity and engagement. Few significant effects of aural realism were observed. Comparisons between collocated and remote communication found that collocated communication was perceived as more effective, but that more visual attention was paid to both remote participants than the collocated user.