CalmResponses: Displaying Collective Audience Reactions in Remote Communication

We propose a system displaying audience eye gaze and nod reactions for enhancing synchronous remote communication. Recently, we have had increasing opportunities to speak to others remotely. In contrast to offline situations, however, speakers often have difficulty observing audience reactions at once in remote communication, which makes them feel more anxious and less confident in their speeches. Recent studies have proposed methods of presenting various audience reactions to speakers. Since these methods require additional devices to measure audience reactions, they are not appropriate for practical situations. Moreover, these methods do not present overall audience reactions. In contrast, we design and develop CalmResponses, a browser-based system which measures audience eye gaze and nod reactions only with a built-in webcam and collectively presents them to speakers. The results of our two user studies indicated that the number of fillers in speaker's speech decreases when audiences' eye gaze is presented, and their self-rating score increases when audiences' nodding is presented. Moreover, comments from audiences suggested benefits of CalmResponses for them in terms of co-presence and privacy concerns.