Remote Communication via Huggable Interfaces - Behavior Synchronization and Social Presence

BSTRACT Interfaces for mediated communication are being designed to increase the quality of the interaction of people geographically separated. Communication modalities offered by the medium was found to affect on the perceived social presence, but also communication strategies involving higher coordinated actions could be related to a higher social presence. The purpose of this study was to investigate how behavior synchronization can influence individual’s perceived social presence and behavior coordination while interacting through a huggable interface with simple visual cues. Through an experimental study that involved two virtual agents, it was observed that a partner that promote synchronous actions : 1) led to a higher level of perceived social presence, and 2) encouraged more responsive behaviors from the user.