Automatic Synchronization between Local and Remote Video Persons in Dining Improves Conversation

Asynchronous exchange of video messaging is a way to achieve time-shifted communication for the people who have difficulties to enjoy daily family communication in real time, because of time-zone differences or life-rhythm differences. However face-to-face communication and video messaging communication is significantly different. Since mealtime is the most common opportunity for daily family communication, it has been proposed to synchronize the video message with the viewer by changing its playback speed in dining situations to improve video messaging communication. This paper studies the influence of the synchronization method by means of Wizard of Oz (WoZ), and by means of the implemented prototype system. In the synchronization method, the dining progress of the video person is matched with that of the viewer by real-time meal weight detection. The lab study found that the synchronization via WoZ increased speech frequency, decreased the duration of switching pauses, and led to a higher ratio of eating actions immediately after verbal responses of the user. This indicated that a more active commitment of the user was observed. The prototype system with finer control of the video than WoZ also achieved comparable result in terms of questionnaire scores, indicating the feasibility of a videoconferencing system with such a function.