Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
CITEC - Center for Cognitive Interaction Technology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2022 Jul 22;7(1):67. doi: 10.1186/s41235-022-00418-1.
A common problem in video conferences is gaze direction. In face-to-face communication, it is common that speaker and listener intermittently look at each other. In a video-conference setting, where multiple participants are on the screen, things are complicated and not necessarily optimal. If the listener feels looked at when the speaker looks into the camera, how tolerant is the listener for slight deviations? And does this depend on the position of the speaker's tile on the screen, or the size of the tile? In a first experiment, participants from a student population judged whether they are looked at, while vertical gaze direction of the looker was varied. Furthermore, the position of the tile on the screen varied. The results showed that a slightly upward directed gaze was optimal for the direct gaze judgment, with a width of ± 4 degrees. Optimal gaze direction was somewhat higher for tiles at the bottom of the screen. A second experiment tested the effect of size on the perception of horizontal gaze directions. Size was found to increase the gaze cone. The paper concludes with some recommendations for a setup of video conference systems, optimized for perceived gaze contact.
视频会议中的一个常见问题是注视方向。在面对面交流中，说话者和倾听者会不时地相互注视是很常见的。但在视频会议中，多个参与者出现在屏幕上，情况变得复杂，并不一定是最佳的。如果听众在说话者看向摄像头时感觉到被注视，那么他们对轻微的偏离有多容忍？而且，这是否取决于说话者的屏幕图块的位置或大小？在第一个实验中，来自学生群体的参与者判断他们是否被注视，同时改变了注视者的垂直注视方向。此外，屏幕上的图块位置也会变化。结果表明，对于直接注视判断，稍微向上的注视方向是最佳的，角度宽度为 ± 4 度。对于屏幕底部的图块，最佳的注视方向略高一些。第二个实验测试了大小对水平注视方向感知的影响。结果发现，大小会增加注视圆锥体。本文最后提出了一些建议，用于优化视频会议系统的设置，以实现感知到的目光接触。
