Characterization of collaboration in a virtual environment with gaze and speech signals

Collaboration during the completion of complex tasks requires synchronization and effective communication within teams. In this paper, we study multimodal collaboration metrics with the intention of designing collaboration support systems that enable the evaluation of collaboration quality. The goal is to provide real-time feedback and prevent the emergence of critical situations due to poor collaboration. We use a collaborative virtual environment to control the situation and the effects of the environment. As a first step to measure collaboration, we present a work in progress that aims to test the effectiveness of verbal and gaze measurements as an indicator of collaboration quality. To do so, an assembly task was performed by twelve dyads in our virtual environment. A tool was designed to process activity inputs in real time. Our findings show that verbal and gaze metrics can provide feedback on collaboration in virtual environment. Using these measures together with others would provide more accurate feedback on collaboration. Lastly, suggestions for improving the tool and an interest for other collaboration indicators are raised.