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Computer-mediated communication (CMC) refers to communication between humans via digital tools. With a functioning digital tool, CMC can be available at any time and any place through instant messaging, emails, discussion forums, social media platforms etc. This chapter highlights the role of communication media in language classes with a focus on CMC and face-to-face (F2F) communication. For a better understanding of these media, their similarities and differences are compared. The relevant theories and models related to the effective usage of communication media are also highlighted. Some of the important theories and models include social presence theory, lack of social context cues hypothesis, media richness theory, cues-filtered-out theories, common ground theory, media synchronicity theory, social information processing theory, the hyperpersonal model of CMC, efficiency framework and the ICT succession model. Lastly, the implications from CMC theories and the potential of CMC in a language class are discussed.

This study examines the joint impact of modality interactivity and deception on the quality of group communication and subsequent group outcomes. Communication quality was examined as three meta-dimensions of relational communication, interactional communication, and task communication qualities. Results from two experiments indicated that audio communication performed as well as or better than face-to-face interaction and far better than text on all three communication quality factors. Deception did not impair communication qualities but did impair performance, suggesting that deceivers successfully led group members astray in their decision-making without noticeably damaging the group’s communication. Communication quality meta-dimensions were positively correlated with both perceived and actual task performance.

Contains fulltext : 236338.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Aphasia is language impairment due to acquired brain damage. It affects people's ability to communicate effectively in everyday life. Little is known about the influence of environmental factors on everyday communication for people with aphasia (PWA). It is generally assumed that for PWA speaking to a familiar person (i.e. with shared experiences and knowledge) is easier than speaking to a stranger (Howard, Swinburn, and Porter). This assumption is in line with existing psycholinguistic theories of common ground (Clark, 1996), but there is little empirical data to support this assumption. The current study investigated whether PWA benefit from conversation partner (CP) familiarity during goal-directed communication, and how this effect compared to a group of neurologically healthy controls (NHC). Sixteen PWA with mild to severe aphasia, sixteen matched NHC, plus self-selected familiar CPs participated. Pairs were videotaped while completing a collaborative communication task. Pairs faced identical Playmobile rooms: the view of the other's room was blocked. Listeners attempted to replicate the 5-item set-up in the instructor's room. Roles were swapped for each trial. For the unfamiliar condition, participants were paired with another participant’s CP (PWA were matched with another PWA's CP based on their aphasia profile). The outcomes were canonical measures of communicative efficiency (i.e. accuracy, time to complete, etc.). Results showed different effects in response to the unfamiliar partner for PWA compared to NHC: In the instructor role, PWA showed faster trial times with the unfamiliar partner, but similar accuracy scores in both conditions. NHC, on the other hand, showed similar trial times across CPs, but higher accuracy scores with the unfamiliar partner. In the listener role, PWA showed a pattern more similar to NHC: equal trial times across conditions, and an improvement in accuracy scores with the unfamiliar partner. Results show that conversation partner familiarity significantly affected communication for PWA dyads on a familiar task, but not for NHC. This research highlights the importance of identifying factors that influence communication for PWA and understanding how this effect varies across aphasia profiles. This knowledge will ultimately inform our assessment and intervention of real-world communication. 24 p.

This chapter constitutes the conclusion to the collective book titled “Representing Place and Territorial Identities in Europe: Discourses, Images, and Practices”, edited by the authors. This book started from the premise that representations count a lot in the construction of place/territorial identities. The concluding chapter highlights the role of territorial identities and identity narratives/representations in fostering resilience at various scales. First, it discusses the focus on local or regional territorial identities, on the relevance of place in preserving heritage and in boosting development. Then, concerning methodology, it reveals the diversity of research material enabling the study of representations: written and oral text, and visual imagery, in face to face interaction and online. This chapter argues that issues relating to specific places/territories mature at the local scale, but they assume breadth and worldwide resonance thanks to the networks of social and economic relationships that bind people and places on the entire planet. It also underlines the need to never stop studying the identity representations of places/territories in a critical and proactive way, because it is also on them that the affirmation of a sustainable, inclusive, and participatory way of living the world depends.

Communication is a vital part of our daily lives. It allows us to express ourselves, our needs and feelings, enabling the establishment of relationships with others. Unfortunately, the ability to communicate can often be partially or, even, fully hindered due to a wide range of conditions. Since communication acts as a crucial step for integration, difficulties associated with communication can act as obstacles to those that experience them, making them struggle to feel included in society. Taking in mind the importance of being able to communicate and the multiple facets of technology, but also other dimensions such as social interaction, and building on previous work regarding assistive communication technologies for school kids, this work addresses the promotion of social skills in technology-mediated contexts. To this end, a tool designed to motivate and promote face to face interaction as well as the employment of the user’s social skills during them, is proposed as an instrument to support and potentially teach and improve the child’s social skills. The proposed approach has already been submitted to first evaluations by end-users and professionals in the field of speech therapy with very promising results.

It is pertinent to understand learners’ individual differences in accomplishing a certain task or goal and identify the facilities or environments that would enable them to learn and use the target language in different contexts more effectively. As both face-to-face (F2F) and online discussions are deemed relevant in the contemporary learning and teaching scenario, individuals need to be aware of the particular affordances that could be supported in CMC or F2F environments with attention paid to one’s individual differences. This chapter looks into the differences in the participation styles of learners who have different personalities and levels of language proficiency in different discussion settings. In addition, the lexical complexity and interactive competence displayed by different language learners in F2F and online discussions are discussed. Lastly, this chapter explains the influence of group composition on group discussions.

Citizen science projects rely on public involvement, making a communication and dissemination strategy essential to their success and impact. This needs to include many aspects, such as identifying the audience, selecting the communication channel(s), and establishing the right language to use. Importantly, citizen science projects must expand beyond traditional top-down monologue interactions and embrace two-way dialogue approaches, especially when communicating with project participants. Further, to be effective, communication activities require good planning and dedicated resources. This chapter highlights the importance of communication and dissemination in citizen science; provides examples of successful strategies and identifies the factors that determine success; and describes some of the challenges that can arise and how to overcome these.

This study explores the processes of establishing a green organizational climate in small-scale companies. Previous studies have primarily focused on factors associated with pro-environmental behaviour in large organizations. The role of a green organizational climate—specifically, the interactional processes involved in the construction of a green climate—has largely been unexplored. Entrepreneurial small companies constitute an ideal arena in which to study the initial phase of greening processes. The present study examined the process of establishing a green organizational climate in seven small-scale Norwegian companies. This article presents a systems model that was developed to analyse how processes at different levels interact in the shaping of the green climate. The design was a longitudinal mixed-methods approach, consisting of focus-group interviews conducted in the field, a questionnaire and follow-up interviews with the leaders. Findings indicate that the construction of a green climate had a strong practise-based approach. The company founders were driven by environmental values; they sparked the initial green measures, influenced the employees—directly and indirectly—and also invited dialogue around and co-construction of the green climate. Frequent face-to-face interactions within the microsystem of the leaders/employees were decisive to the development of the green climate. The present study contributes to the understanding of the process of greening an organization: specifically, how green practice relates to the construction of a shared green climate. Contrary to previous research and theorizing, this study indicates that it is possible to “go green” without a superordinate green strategy.

Although the question of whether women and men speak differently is a topic of hot debate, an overview of the extent towhich empirical studies provide robust support for a relationship between sex/gender and language is lacking. Therefore, the aim of the current scoping review is to synthesize recent studies from various theoretical perspectives on the relationship between sex/gender and language use in spoken face-to-face dyadic interactions. Fifteen empirical studies were systematically selected for review, and were discussed according to four different theoretical perspectives and associated methodologies. More than thirty relevant linguistic variables were identified (e.g., interruptions and intensifiers). Overall, few robust differences between women and men in the use of linguistic variables were observed across contexts, although women seem to be more engaged in supportive turn-taking than men. Importantly, gender identity salience, institutionalized roles, and social and contextual factors such as interactional setting or conversational goal seem to play a key role in the relationship between speaker’s sex/gender and language used in spoken interaction.

How to apply Internet technology to the classroom in the teaching process of applied undergraduate colleges is a question worth studying. At present, in the context of the domestic financial crisis, it is in this form to create learning videos, students can watch at home or outside the classroom, can study completely at home, or can return to the classroom to study. Face to face communication between teachers and students through the Internet reduces a sense of oppression. And the emergence of the financial crisis has replaced the lack of traditional classroom teaching, highlighting the dominant position and encouraging changes in teaching methods. In the environment of financial crisis, the reform and reform of education is still the same theme of the times, especially the development and innovation of educational methods, combined with the current reform of education and learning forms, in fact, the use of information resources sharing. Based on this, a new model suitable for undergraduate education in China is put forward, which can be used for reference to the innovative research of “Internet+” model of undergraduate education. This paper focuses on the financial teaching reform and innovation path under the financial crisis.

There is a public concern that smartphone communication undermines well-being by displacing face-to-face interactions. However, research on this “social displacement hypothesis” has provided mixed results. We examined when this hypothesis holds true (within-persons vs. between-persons) and tested an intervention to decrease smartphone communication. Participants (N = 109) reported daily on smartphone communication, face-to-face communication, and emotional well-being for fifteen days. At day six, participants were assigned to a mindfulness-treatment intervention group or a no-treatment control group. The social displacement hypothesis was confirmed at the within-person but not between-person level. Specifically, when someone communicates a lot using her smartphone during a particular day, that person engages in less face-to-face interactions during that same day. However, people who tend to spend a lot of time communicating on their smartphone do not engage in less face-to-face conversations than people who largely refrain from smartphone communication. The mindfulness-intervention reduced daily smartphone communication, which decreased negative emotions.

The article considers the problem of participation in social activities of people with disabilities from a perspective of face-to-face interaction. The analysis focuses on episodes of interaction between people with speech impairments and staff members of a daycare center during regular group meetings. Communication in such cases may be difficult because of impairments that affect capacities of speech production (e.g., inability to speak, extremely limited vocabulary, problems with articulation) by disabled participants. These impairments lead to the ambiguity of some of their utterances and actions. However, as studies of “atypical interaction” demonstrate, participants can successfully overcome such obstacles relying on the context of interaction—previous sequences of utterances and actions, bodily orientation, posture, gaze direction, interactional environment, current activity, and common background knowledge. Tying current potentially ambiguous communicative act (e.g., gesture or phonetically distorted utterance) to one or another aspect of the context, fully competent speakers demonstrate their interpretation of that act by their subsequent responses. Due to such coconstruction of meaning, their partners with speech impairments get an opportunity to make contributions to the interaction, in other words, to participate in it. However, such contextualizations and interpretations may not only enhance participation but restrict it as well. The article demonstrates how staff members ascribe meaning to some of those ambiguous actions and utterances by tying them to the prior turns in the interaction. However, there is evidence that staff members’ ascriptions probably do not quite agree with communicative intentions of their partners. As analysis of the video recording of these interactions demonstrates, there are aspects of the context that may suggest different interpretations. But these aspects go unnoticed, and this probably leads the people with speech impairments to the loss of partial control of meaning of their actions and reduction of their participation. Article in Russian DOI: 10.25285/2078-1938-2020-12-3-100-125

Conventional classroom teaching has been continually evolving, has undergone several technological onslaughts. The global pandemic crisis has enforced the shift of conventional classroom teaching to online classrooms. The sudden advent of online teaching has created a plethora of challenges in learning and has thus put in the same repercussions on teaching. A survey of teachers undergoing this shift was conducted to understand the current experience of online teaching to recognize the differences between classroom teaching and online teaching approaches, and identify the challenges therein. SWOT analysis of the teachers is presented in this paper to understand Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The study reveals that teachers have started teaching students online even without adequate training. This paper attempts to identify the crux of the shift to the online method of teaching. This would not only differentiate between the two methodologies, but bridge the gap in the missing nonverbal and face to face communication in online methodology. The opinions of expert educators also add an additional dimension to the SWOT analysis. A few measures based on observations and experience as teachers are suggested, and further open this topic for brainstorming to make the experience of teaching-learning a more impactful one for teachers and students.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been strict limits on visitors to hospitals. This has led to clinicians having an increasing number of difficult conversations with patients and their relatives over the phone. There is a lack of published literature examining how to do this well, but it is recognised that phone communication does differ from face to face interactions, and requires specific training. What is most important to patients and their families when receiving bad news is privacy, adequate time without interruptions, clarity and honesty when delivering the information, and an empathetic and caring attitude. Much of the work done on breaking bad news has been done in oncology and focusses on face to face interaction; there has been an assumption that this is transferrable to the emergency department, and more recently that this is applicable to conversations over the phone. Multiple educational interventions to improve the delivery of bad news have been developed, with differing frameworks to help clinicians carry out this stressful task. Simulation is widely used to train clinicians to break bad news, and has solid theoretical foundations for its use. The psychological safety of participants must be considered, especially with emotive subjects such as breaking bad news. We believe there is a need for specific training in breaking bad news over the phone, and developed an innovative simulation-based session to address this. The training has been well received, and has also highlighted the need for a space where clinicians feel able to discuss the emotional impact of the difficult conversations they are having.

Most previous research has demonstrated that receiving ability-focused praise (e.g., “You are smart”) negatively affects intrinsic motivation following failure. Surprisingly, a recent study showed that ability-focused praise affects not only the praisee but also the person offering praise, that is, the praiser. However, evidence of the effects on the praiser is quite limited, despite the utility of praise in education. Therefore, the present study employed face-to-face interaction to advance the knowledge of the effects of praise on the praiser. Two experiments were conducted in which undergraduate participants (n = 39 and n = 51) praised a research confederate. We measured attentional engagement using an eye-tracker as a behavioral indicator of intrinsic motivation, as well as self-reported task enjoyment. To estimate the effect of praise, we combined the results of two experiments and conducted a Bayes factor meta-analysis. The results showed that in the ability praise group, participants’ attentional engagement in a task was significantly lower than in the control group. The present finding indicates that ability-focused praise negatively affects the praiser’s intrinsic motivation and suggests that praise should be used with caution in social and educational contexts.

Various mobile technologies proofed to enhance peoples collocated social interactions. In particular, user-generated presentations of self have proven beneficial, albeit in specific social settings. This field study interviewed 30 participants for their attitudes towards personal sharing in six public settings in a Nordic metropolitan area. We asked participants to draw what they want to share on an attachable paper sticker. We observed retention towards sharing in places with a more heterogeneous audience. Predominantly people’s attitudes towards sharing depended on an individual’s current context. Our results highlight the symbolic act of sharing in public as a factor for placing personal public displays. Further, we suggest leveraging the different strategies of extroverts and introverts for collocated social interactions.

Notifications are one of the smartphones’ key features. However, notifications can be disruptive, especially during social interaction. Augmented reality (AR) glasses can embed notifications directly into the user’s field of view and enable reading them while being engaged in a primary task. However, for efficient notification presentation using AR glasses, it is necessary to understand how notifications should be displayed without negatively affecting social interaction. Therefore, we conducted a study with 32 participants (16 pairs) using AR glasses to investigate how to display notifications during face-to-face communication. We compared center and top-right positions for notifications while aligning them relative to the user’s field of view or with the conversation partner. We found significant effects of notification position and alignment on how notifications are perceived using AR glasses during face-to-face communication. Insights from our study inform the design of applications for AR glasses that support displaying digital notifications.

The upsurge of technological advancement and the introduction of the internet has impacted face to face communication. Background The advances in this field have gained much interest in implying increased technology usage on various psychosocial factors, mainly mental health and changing communication patterns in the family system. Methodology This paper provides a systematic review of the literature published between 1990–2020, examining the relationship between technology usage and its impact on family factors like communication and family relationships. Results A database search was conducted using certain keywords, and in total, 20 papers were selected according to inclusion criteria. The results are categorized into domains of 1) technology use of the family, 2) family communication 3) family bonding 4) rules for technology use 5) boundaries maintained by the family members related to technology use. Conclusion The results indicate that technology usage in families is very high, and maximum daily communication happens through technology. Family leisure time, offline family bonding and communication is negatively affected due to technology use. A model was developed which has implications in the family psychiatry field and specifically in working with families having difficulties managing healthy use of technology.

Communication is integral to organizations and yet field evidence on the relation between communication and worker productivity remains scarce. We argue that a core role of communication is to transmit information that helps co-workers do their job better. We build a simple model in which workers choose the amount of communication by trading off this benefit against the time cost incurred by the sender, and use it to derive a set of empirical predictions. We then exploit a natural experiment in an organization where problems arrive and must be sequentially dealt with by two workers. For exogenous reasons, the first worker can sometimes communicate face-to-face with their colleague. Consistently with the predictions of our model, we find that: (1) the second worker works faster (at the cost of the first worker having less time to deal with incoming problems) when face-to-face communication is possible, (2) this effect is stronger when the second worker is busier and for homogenous and closely located teams, and (3) the (career) incentives of workers determine how much they communicate with their colleagues. We also find that workers partially internalise social outcomes in their communication decisions. Our findings illustrate how workers in teams adjust the amount of mutual communication to its costs and benefits.

Face to face communication is interactive, and involves continuous feedforward and feedback of information, thoughts, and feelings to the opposite party. To accurately assess the neural processing underlying these interactions, synchronous and simultaneous recording of the brain activity from both parties is needed, a method known as hyperscanning. Here, we investigated the neural processing underlying nonverbal face-to-face communication using a magnetoencephalographic (MEG) hyperscanning system, comprising two fiber optically connected MEGs. Eight pairs of subjects participated. Each individual in each pair viewed a combined 80 randomized 20 s trials of 40 real-time and 40 recorded (hereafter, real and simulated, respectively) videos of the opposite party’s face. Non-verbal communication through actions such as gaze, eye blinks, and facial expression was intrinsically only possible during real videos. After each trial, subjects individually subjectively discriminated whether the viewed video was real or simulated. Overall subjective discrimination accuracies were slightly but significantly above chance level. Statistical analysis of brain activity revealed a significant three way interaction between theta-band rhythm amplitude, video type, and subjective discrimination response in the right frontal cortex. Additionally, when subjects responded that videos were simulated, theta activity was significantly lower for real videos compared with simulated videos (p = 0.01). This result not only demonstrates the importance of right frontal theta activity during non-verbal communication, but also indicates the existence of unconscious, semi-automated neural processing during non-verbal communication that underlies one’s ability to subjectively discriminate whether or not the opposite party is real.

The education ecosystem in India is primarily dependent on face to face interaction of teachers with students. Technology assistive tools available to educators act as an aid for imparting quality education. However, the complete transition from face-to-face interaction to virtual interaction was challenging for educators over the world during the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. This paradigm shift in teaching and the use of webinars as the primary resource for teaching has shown a significant impact on the learning patterns of both educators and students. This paper presents a case study conducted on educators of Chitkara University, Rajpura Punjab, India. The goal is to Figure out their experience of using webinars as a teaching tool during the Covid-19 period for engineering undergraduates. It also discusses the challenges and issues faced by faculty members while conducting webinars. The usability score for webinars as a tool for teaching comes as 68.22%, which infers that a significant number of faculty members find it a useful tool for teaching their course. Further, several webinars platform explored by educators, out of which Go-To-Webinar platform is most favorable for the majority of faculty members.

Background A novel coronavirus first reported in Wuhan City in China in 2019 (COVID-19) developed into a global pandemic throughout 2020. Many countries around the world implemented strict social distancing policies to curb the spread of the virus. In this study we aimed to examine potential change in mental/physical health and social relationships during a highly restrictive COVID-19 lockdown period in Australia during April 2020. Methods Our survey (n = 1, 599) included questions about concerns, social behaviour, perceived change in relationship quality, social media use, frequency of exercise, physical health, and mental health during COVID-19 lockdown (April, 2020). Results When estimating their mental health for the previous year 13% of participants reported more negative than positive emotion, whereas this increased to 41% when participants reflected on their time during COVID-19 lockdown. A substantial proportion (39–54%) of participants reported deterioration in mental health, physical health, financial situation, and work productivity. However, most of these participants reported ’somewhat’ rather than ’a lot’ of deterioration, and many others reported ’no change’ (40–50%) or even ’improvement’ (6–17%). Even less impact was apparent for social relationships (68% reported ’no change’) as participants compensated for decreased face-to-face interaction via increased technology-mediated interaction. Conclusions The psychological toll of COVID-19 on Australians may not have been as large as other parts of the world with greater infection rates. Our findings highlight how technology-mediated communication can allow people to adequately maintain social relationships during an extreme lockdown event.

Academic advising of the postgraduate students is considered as a fundamental rule and one of the significant positive services and responsibilities for the academic staff follow up in most of the e-leading educations. The expert system is considered as one of most achievement areas in artificial intelligence and highly appreciated for application with e-learning and teaching methods. The aim of this paper, is to survey the most expert systems used in advisory model and replaced with the manual registration and advising system of face to face communication and discussion in Instructor office. The method used of determined the key factors related to student advising and expert system models though open access databases. The finding of this section reviews out nine selected expert systems in order to explore the strengths, and limitations of existing expert system approaches to advising undergraduate students.

Encounters with casual acquaintances are common in our daily lives. In such situations, people are sometimes unable to find an appropriate topic for conversation, and as such, an awkward silence follows. However, we believe that this awkward encounter can be an opportunity to build a good relationship with the acquaintance through a brief conversation if an appropriate topic is discovered. In this study, we examined a method to enrich casual conversations for an unintended encounter by following three strategies. (1) an online questionnaire survey that involves 10,750 participants to determine how they experience awkward encounters. (2) the design and implementation of a smartwatch-based topic suggestion that relies on finding a commonality in the users' video-viewing histories. (3) demos and semi-structured interviews that involves 15 participants to evaluate this approach. This investigation demonstrates that this novel approach can help users overcome the awkwardness of conversations with casual acquaintances.

This study concerns the use of speech pauses, and especially breath pauses in a Danish corpus of spontaneous dyadic conversations. Speech pauses which have specific communicative functions are investigated in relation to their occurrences before and after other communicative units, all annotated and classified in the form of dialogue acts. Breath pauses have been addressed in only few studies even though they are important in communication and therefore should be accounted for when implementing human-machine dialogue systems. Dialogue acts, on the contrary, have been one of the backbones in dialogue systems since they generalize over different expressions of common communicative functions. In the current work, we describe the annotation of dialogue acts in the corpus and present an analysis of pauses using these annotations. To our best knowledge, dialogue acts have not been previously used for analyzing the functions of breath pauses. Our analysis shows that the most common type of pause having a communicative function in the Danish conversations are breath pauses. Breath pauses in the corpus have different uses, one of these being that of delimiting speech segments which are left unfinished and are then abandoned by the speaker (retractions in dialogue acts terminology) and therefore perceivable breathing can be a useful feature for determining spoken segments which must not be included in the dialogue history in human-machine dialogue systems.

People nowadays do not only display facial expressions in face to face communication but also in on-line communication using graphical symbols named emojis. The present study explored 30-month-old toddlers’ ability to recognize emojis that represented six basic human emotions. In the study, 38 toddlers first saw scenarios that elicited different emotions in an actor and were asked to visually identify the matching emoji in the presence of a distractor. Eye-tracking results showed that toddlers could correctly identify the emoji that represented the emotion in each scenario. Toddlers then heard different emotion words and were again found to be able to identify the matching emoji. These findings provide preliminary evidence that the ability to recognize and understand the emotional value of emotion symbols in the virtual world emerges early in development.

Closeness exists between any group of individuals who feel heard, understood, and are able to share their feelings by talking openly with one another. The feeling of closeness is an essential dimension of relationships, having implications for how individuals communicate, accept, and trust each other. Different modes of communication have also been shown to generate varying levels of closeness. This study focuses on personal interactions in Chinese society, where communication between young people predominantly takes place online. This study aims to assess how communication methods impact the degree of closeness in relationships. Chinese participants aged 18-32 years old (N = 142; 105 females; 37 males) who had not met before were randomly assigned to interact with another participant either in a face-to-face (FtF) setting, or over the WeChat text messaging app. After interacting through structured prompts for 30 minutes, participants were then asked to rate their perceived interpersonal closeness with their conversation partner, which was quantified by the extent to which they enjoyed the conversation. A post-experiment survey investigated the degree of whether participants were positively surprised by their partner and the likelihood that they would be open to interacting with their partner again. Results indicate that participants in the FtF setting perceived greater degree of closeness with their partners, compared to those in text messaging groups. Participants who interacted in the FtF setting also reported a higher degree of enjoyment, felt more surprised by the conversation, and were more willing to give contact information to their partners than those in the text messaging group. Interestingly, the participants’ personality-type moderated the effect of condition on enjoyment parameter such that introverts enjoyed the text messaging conversations more than the FtF conversations, while extraverts were the opposite. Our findings hence suggest that even in a time when most young people interact with peers via social media and text messaging, authentic face-to-face interactions generate a stronger perception of closeness regardless of whether the person is an introvert or extravert. Despite the progress made by technology to close gaps and remove physical barriers in communication, face-to-face interaction remains the most reliable means of generating closeness among youth in China.

Background: Quality patient care in primary care settings, especially for patients with complex long-term health needs, is improved by interprofessional collaborative practice. Effective collaboration is achieved in large part by frequent informal face-to-face “on-the-fly” communication between team members. Research undertaken in hospitals shows that interior architecture influences informal communication and collaboration between staff. However, little is known about how the interior architecture of primary care practices might facilitate or hinder informal communication and collaboration among primary care staff. Objectives: This research explores the influence of primary care practice interior architecture on face-to-face on-the-fly communication for collaborative care. Methods: An observational study was undertaken to compare face-to-face informal interactions between staff in three primary care practices of differing interior architecture. Data collected from practices included: direct observations floor plans, photographs, interviews, and surveys. Results: Most primary care staff engaged in frequent, brief face-to-face interactions, which appeared to be key to the delivery of effective collaboration. Features of primary care practice designs that were associated with increased frequency of staff interaction included shared spaces, staff proximity/visibility, and the presence of convenient circulatory and transitional spaces where staff were able to easily engage in timely on-the-fly communication with colleagues. Conclusions: The interior architecture of primary care practices has an important impact on staff collaboration. Although more research is needed to investigate further details in more practices, close attention should nevertheless be paid to maximizing opportunities for brief face-to-face communication in well-designed shared spaces in primary care practices.

An individual may give information through the linguistic means formally established in society for this purpose, namely, speech or recognized speech substitutes such as writing and pictorial signs or gestures. Ordinarily, however, in using the naked senses to receive embodied messages from others, the individual also makes himself available as a source of embodied information for them. Then, is a second crucial communication condition of face-to-face interaction: not only are the receiving and conveying of the naked and embodied kind, but each giver is himself a receiver, and each receiver is a giver. The linkage of naked senses on side and embodied transmission on the other provides of the crucial communication conditions of face-to-face interaction. Under this condition any message that an individual sends is likely to be qualified and modified by much additional information that others glean from him simultaneously, often unbeknownst to him; further, a very large number of brief messages may be sent.

There are reasons to consider virtual reality (VR) as a newly arrived communication medium that ought to be differentiated from all other forms of mediated communication, since it is the first and only medium with the potential to enable incorporation of the full spectrum of both verbal and non-verbal cues. The present paper is part of a broader scheme in investigating potential differentiations in interpersonal communication between the physical world and VR. Our experimental design builds upon the existing knowledge base of forced compliance experiments; the set-up involved a comparative study of two groups (N = 46) performing tasks under the authoritative influence of a researcher who applied persuasion techniques. Results indicate that VR-mediated communication is as intricate as face to face, since subjects were equally or more compliant, with the nature of information exchanged (e.g. fact-based, morality-based, etc.) being a contributing factor, whilst exemplifying under-development and future applications of VR collaborative environments.

In this digital edge, Indonesian Financial Service Authority (OJK) has encouraged bank industry to develop internet banking services. This service has changed the way customer interact with the bank from face to face interaction to online interaction. The development of this internet banking services have triggered marketing researcher to investigate how this service can influence customer satisfaction and commitment. This study aims to examine the effect of internet banking service quality on customer satisfaction and commitment. A questionnaire survey has conducted to 130 bank customer’s in Padang. Research instruments of this study have been adapted from many previous studies. Structural Equation Model analysis technique has been used to analyze the data of this research. The result of this study found that the dimension of internet banking service quality such as easy to use, website design, privacy, responsiveness, efficiency and reliability have significant effect on customer satisfaction. Furthermore, it was found that customer satisfaction has significant effect on customer commitment.Keywords: Commitment, Stisfaction, E-Banking

Self-regulated learning is very important during online learning in Covid-19 pandemic, since there is no face to face interaction between teacher and students. However, this student ability has not been found in our online class of Biology in X MIPA 1. Based on the author's reflection, students are still very dependent on teacher instruction during their learning activities. To overcome this problem, the author applied online learning utilizing JB Class by implementing self-regulated learning strategies adapted from Wandler & Imbriale (2017). Result of the study describes that online learning using JB Class is able to encourage student’s self-regulated learning. Based on the questionnaire filled out by students, the self-regulated learning among students of class X MIPA 1 reaches 75%.

This research explores the use of eye-tracking during Augmented Reality (AR) - supported conversations. In this scenario, users can obtain information that supports the conversation, without augmentations distracting the actual conversation.We propose using gaze that allows users to gradually reveal information on demand. Information is indicated around user’s head, which becomes fully visible when other’s visual attention explicitly falls upon the area. We describe the design of such an AR UI and present an evaluation of the feasibility of the concept. Results show that despite gaze inaccuracies, users were positive about augmenting their conversations with contextual information and gaze interactivity. We provide insights into the trade-offs between focusing on the task at hand (i.e., the conversation), and consuming AR information. These findings are useful for future use cases of eye based AR interactions by contributing to a better understanding of the intricate balance between informative AR and information overload.

This paper falls within the framework of the issue regarding students’ integration and support within higher education by means of digital platforms. It is a reflection on the implementation of a pilot program called Mentoring Academy in degree courses of a Portuguese public higher education institution. The main aim of the program is to support the integration of young undergraduates in higher education and help them overcome difficulties. This paper contributes to achieving the aims of finding whose help students seek when they have queries regarding the course or institution, the means they use to make such queries, their level of acquaintance with digital platforms, the digital platforms they consider most adequate to their integration in higher education, and the students’ level of adaptation to both the institution and the degree course they attend. Among the results, obtained by questionnaire from a sample of 80 subjects, we highlight the following: when they have queries regarding the institution or any curricular contents, undergraduates mostly seek help from their fellow students; they mostly use face to face communication and the institution’s platform to make such queries; their level of acquaintance with the institution’s platform is high; the most adequate means for their integration in higher education are social networks and the institution’s platform; and the undergraduates’ level of adaptation to the institution is very high.

Eye contact is crucial in social interactions, linking with sincerity and friendliness. However, blind people cannot see and make eye contact when they communicate with sighted people. It influences the involvement of blind people in blind-sighted conversations. Based on this context, we implemented Social glasses with an eye-tracking system, aiming to improve the communication quality between blind and sighted people in face-to-face conversations. Social glasses attempts to simulate the appropriate gaze for blind people, especially establishing the “eye contact” in blind-sighted conversations. To evaluate the impact of the interactive gaze displayed on the Social glasses, we performed dyadic-conversation tests under four experimental conditions (No Gaze, Constant Gaze, Random Gaze, and Interactive Gaze) for 40 participants. Quantitative results showed that the Interactive gaze has a positive impact on improving the communication quality between blind and sighted people, which were consistent with a qualitative analysis of the participants’ comments.

Background Research has shown that text-based communication via telemedicine will continue to be a mode of communication that patients and physicians use in the future. However, very few studies have examined patients’ perspectives regarding the increased use of text-based communication versus face-to-face (FtF) communication. Objective This study aimed to understand and compare the potential differences in patients’ perceptions of communication effectiveness with their physicians through different modes of communication. Methods We conducted a web-based survey of 345 patients to explore the impact of different channels on effective communication and perceived health behavior and outcomes. We tested the impact of patients’ perceived communication and media effectiveness on their self-efficacy, communication satisfaction, and perceived health outcomes, separately for text-based information technology (IT)–mediated communication and FtF communication. Furthermore, we conducted a group comparison to identify significant differences across these 2 groups. Results We found no significant differences between patients’ perceptions of effective communication using either IT-mediated communication or FtF communication with their physicians. However, we found significant differences in patients’ perception of media effectiveness: patients perceived FtF communication to be a more favorable medium (P=.02). Interestingly, we found no significant difference in terms of benefits (P=.09) and success (P=.08) of IT-mediated communication versus FtF communication. Conclusions The results of this study imply that patients can achieve the same level of communication effectiveness with their physicians using IT-mediated communication as they would in comparable FtF interactions, but patients view FtF communication to be a more favorable medium than IT-mediated communication.