The Effects of Visibility on Dialogue and Performance in a Cooperative Problem Solving Task

This study compares task outcome and various dialogue parameters between situations in which task participants either could or could not see each other. The results establish that the visibility of one's conversational partner improves information transfer and the management of tum taking in a transactional problem solving task. The greater efficiency of the dialogues between participants who could see each other was attributed to the exchange of visually transmitted, non-verbal signals. In attempting to compensate for the lack of this additional channel of communication, pairs of subjects who could not see each other demonstrated flexibility and versatility in communicating. They interrupted their partners more frequently and used more back channel responses to provide their partners with increased verbal feedback. The analysis of one specific non-verbal behaviour, gaze, for a subsample of the dialogues, suggested that gaze plays a role in aiding communication.