October 30, 2008
Videoconferencing May Not Be As Good As Face-to-Face
Research published in the journal Management Science, reveals differences in information processing by medical professionals attending a seminar. One group attended a series of seminars in person and the other via videoconferening.
The researchers found that attendees of videoconferences must work harder to interpret information delivered during a conference than they would if they attended face-to-face. Results show differences in information processing: participants attending a seminar via videoconference are more influenced by the likeability of the speaker than by the quality of the arguments presented, whereas the opposite pattern is true for participants attending in person.
The Study
Residents, attendings, and local physicians specializing in pediatrics, psychiatry, or orthopedics were surveyed as they attended 1 of 19 different live interactive seminars, either face-to-face or via videoconference. The seminars spanned a 12-week period, comprising part of the teaching activities of an urban healthcare consortium. Each interactive one-hour seminar was delivered live by a different physician in a large auditorium, followed by questions and answers. These seminars were simultaneously broadcasted via videoconference to a number of smaller sites. Both face-to-face and remote attendees could ask questions.
According to the authors, important business decisions may suffer if videoconferencing is used to make them without adjusting the process to take its differences into account.
The researchers offer guidelines for understanding when videoconferencing is most appropriate and for improving the design of videoconferencing equipment:
* Videoconferencing may not be appropriate for decision making when some stakeholders are present face-to-face and others attend via video, because these two groups are likely to process information differently.
* Videoconferencing equipment may be improved by the addition of features that reduce cognitive workload, such as support for turn taking, audio localization, and personal distance location.
* Videoconference presenters can use heuristic cues to increase the influence of their message.
This research draws upon dual-process cognitive theory to describe how people process information differently when it is delivered via videoconference rather than when it is delivered face-to-face. The authors believe that this is due to the higher cognitive demands that videoconferencing places on participants and that differences in cognitive load can explain these effects. The findings also show that videoconferencing is not like face-to-face communication, despite apparent similarities.
Management Science
Vol. 54, No. 9, September 2008, pp. 1565-1578