Visual Feedback: Its Effect On Teleconferencing

We present shared visual feedback for supporting conversations in contingent auditory environments like teleconferences. To facilitate the initiation of conversations in such environments, it is critical that the caller be able to grasp the auditory channel between the caller's mouth and the receiver's ear, and to vocalize at the voice level proper for the receiver. To achieve this goal, feedback of the voice level as measured at the receiver's ear is needed. Our starting points were a first generation prototype that displays visual feedback on the caller's screen and a second generation prototype that projects visual feedback onto the floor in the receiver's room. To enhance the speaker's assurance and to make installation easier, a third prototype is implemented as a LED device and a microphone. An experiment is conducted on the third prototype and its effectiveness in supporting natural conversations in telecommunication sessions in daily use environments is confirmed.