Camera angle affects dominance in video-mediated communication

Physical proximity and appearance guide people to interact with each other in different ways [1,6]. However, in Video-Mediated Communication (VMC), these are distorted in various ways. Monitors and camera zooms make people look close or far, monitors and camera angles can be high or low making people look tall or short, volume can be loud or soft, making people sound assertive or submissive, --all independent of the true physical characteristics or intentions of the participants. Here we test the apparent height of a person on how dominant they are in a group decisionmaking task. We found that the artificially tall people had more influence in the group decision than the artificially short people. Keywords Proximity, camera angle, VMC, distance, dominance, influence, height

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2002
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Wei Huang, Judith S. Olson, Gary M. Olson
• Keywords: Appearance Guide People, CHI 2002, Human Computer Interaction, Low Making People, Zooms Make People