The Shared Social Space as a Basic Factor for the Design of Group-Ware

An experiment was performed to test the hypothesis that a shared social space (SSS) with continuous and "rich" communication possibilities leads to co-operative behavior. The DOOM game provides a test environment, where a group of four players have to fight against each other. Two samples of 12 persons were tested playing DOOM: one with the SSS conditions (continuous spoken communication mode, small physical distance among players, no headphones), and another under the condition of separation during the game (discontinuous communication mode: spoken communication only during a break, large physical distance and headphones during the game). During a break all players had have the chance to discuss the outcome of the first trial (group process feedback). The SSS conditions led to a significantly increased amount of coalitions between players. These coalitions, however, seem to be in-stable over time. Group process feedback also had a positive effect on the extent of coalitions.