INFO3315Human-Computer Interaction

    09-02 · Week 9

    Social interfaces: conversation, remote talk and presence

    How face-to-face conversation is organised (Sacks et al., 1978), what breaks when talk goes remote, and telepresence versus social presence.

    • State the three turn-taking rules from Sacks et al. (1978).
    • Explain why breakdowns must be detected before they are repaired.
    • Describe what is lost in remote conversation and how technology compensates.
    • Distinguish telepresence from social presence.

    11 min readJump to the quiz ↓

    Intuition

    Talking looks effortless because we run a set of unwritten rules without noticing. Remote tools remove cues we rely on, so they have to put some of them back.

    Social technologies grew from community spaces to everyday talk

    The WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link) is one of the oldest virtual communities, best known for its forum, and predates the web. Early social interfaces started by creating computer-mediated experiences between people, called community, usually a place-centric gathering place of message boards, groups, list-servs and virtual worlds.

    Being social means giving information to another person: news, life changes, project developments, events. Social technologies let us stay social when apart, but they differ in how they support us. Some encourage interaction, such as family games with Alexa. Others harm everyday conversations (Turkle, 2015): a preference to text instead of talk, and children less likely to talk since adults do not. The lecture asks whether face-to-face conventions apply to social computing tools, whether new conversational mechanisms have evolved, and how people choose which app to use.

    Face-to-face talk follows three turn-taking rules

    Exam detail

    Sacks et al. (1978) propose three basic rules:

    1. The current speaker chooses the next speaker by asking an opinion, question or request.
    2. Another person decides to start speaking.
    3. The current speaker continues talking.

    Cues: for length, “I have three things to say”; to interrupt, gesturing or “Excuse me”; for the end, body orientation (moving away or closer) or raising the voice to indicate a question.

    People do not always follow the rules: they interrupt, talk over each other, miss a cue to answer, and misinterpret. Breakdowns must be detected before they can be repaired, so speaker and listener must attend to what the other says.

    Remote conversation loses cues and location, and tools add them back

    Early remote inventions were the telegraph and telephone. Now there are emails, video conferencing, instant messaging and chat. The problems: a lack of non-verbal cues (early solution the video phone call, now video calls; for groups, enlarging the person speaking, or eye tracking and directional microphones to project body movement and expressions to the other location), and a lack of presence in the location of the conversation (telepresence robots let people attend by controlling a robot remotely).

    Compare

    Telepresence

    Being able to attend a remote place, for example by controlling a robot there.

    Social presence

    The degree of awareness, feeling and reaction to other people who are virtually present in an online environment.

    Recall

    State the three rules of Sacks et al. in your own words.

    Current speaker picks the next speaker; otherwise someone else starts; otherwise the current speaker keeps going.

    Check yourself

    Select all that apply

    Source

    Lecture 9 PDF