Conveying Directional Gaze Cues to Support Remote Participation in Hybrid Meetings

We study videoconferencing for meetings with some co-located participants and one remote participant. A standard Skype-like interface for the remote participant is compared to a more immersive 3D interface that conveys gaze directions in a natural way. Experimental results show the 3D interface is promising: all significant differences are in favor of 3D and according to the participants the 3D interface clearly supports selective gaze and selective listening. We found some significant differences in perceived quality of cooperation and organization, and on the opinions about other group members. No significant differences were found for perceived social presence of the remote participants, but we did measure differences in social presence for co-located participants. Measured gaze frequency and duration nor perceived turn-taking behavior did differ significantly.