基礎論文

Increasing Willingness to Communicate in Co-locatedPresentation Meetings using Augmented Reality
Igor de Souza Almeida*1 Goshiro Yamamoto*1 Takafumi Taketomi*1
Jun Miyazaki*2 and Hirokazu Kato*1
Abstract --- In this paper we present a web-based Augmented Reality (AR) meeting support
system aiming at improving communication in a co-located (face-to-face) meeting. We havedeveloped a prototype system, Meetsu, which consists of a web system that displays questions
and comments submitted by meeting participants as AR annotations on top of a live video feed.
The AR view allows for an easy visualization of the overall impression of the audience which
impacts on the participants’ predisposition to communicate. We have conducted a user study tomeasure the change in the levels of Willingness to Communicate (WTC) before and after the useof the system with two different meeting groups. The system was presented in two versions, an
AR and a Non-AR version, and the perceived effect on the meeting was investigated. Results
showed an improvement on the WTC scores for both groups with statistical significance (p<0.05)
being achieved by one group. The AR version was considered to make the participants more
willing to communicate and more engaged in real-world conversation.
Keywords: augmented reality, co-located meeting, meeting support system, willingness tocommunicate

1 Introduction
Augmented Reality (AR) is known for its capability toannotate the real world with computer generated
information. The usefulness of displaying virtual
information associated with specific locations in the realworld has been demonstrated in user navigation and task
support applications. However its use for mediating
communication has not been widely explored.
The use of AR for mediating communication has
garnered attention in recent years, during which the focus
has been on bringing users into the same space virtually,
to simulate face-to-face communication [1][2]. However,few works have studied the effectiveness of AR inengaging people in communication. Although thetechnology itself might be engaging, it does not directly
relate to success in fostering communication.
In communication research, there are three maingroups of measures used to evaluate a person’sorientation toward communication: measures of anxiety,talking-frequency and approach-avoidance. The firstgroup deals with the fear associated with real or*1 Nara Institute of Science and Technology*2 Tokyo Institute of Technology

anticipated communication scenarios; the second groupmeasures the frequency that a person talks; and the thirdgroup addresses the willingness to communicate. In thiswork, we focus on the third group, since our interest is inincreasing the likelihood of a person to communicate, notin decreasing fear or counting frequency of utterance.
The most developed measure within the third group is
Willingness to Communicate (WTC). It is a measure of
the predisposition toward either approaching or avoiding
communication [3] (see section 5 for details).
This paper describes a novel approach to mediating
communication in a co-located meeting scenario. We use
web-based AR annotations to improve levels of WTC
among participants in a meeting. This study offers twocontributions for the application of AR technologies tocommunication-sensitive contexts: 1) A new approach to
AR technology as a communication facilitator inco-located meeting contexts; 2) A measure of WTC for
AR as a communication facilitator.
We developed a system called Meetsu, which allows
meeting participants to submit contributions (questions,comments and pre-determined icons) online. These
contributions are broadcasted in a live video feed of themeeting room, which is displayed on an extra screen日本バーチャルリアリティ学会論文誌

alongside a display with the presentation slides used by aspeaker as shown in Figure 1. Each participant can see
his/her contribution overlaid on his/her location in thevideo feed.
Presentation screen

Meetsu screen

Vol.19, No.1, 2014

participants with a more dynamic personality or those
who are higher up in the hierarchy. In other words, aco-located meeting can be an exciting experience forsome and a terrifying experience to others, depending on
their communication skills and their position in theorganization. As a result, turn-taking in a Q&A session,for instance, might be restricted to specific participants.
This scenario illustrates the problems that can arise fromlow levels of WTC.
3 Motivation

Fig.1 Two separate screens are used during the meeting: one
contains the presentation slides (left), another displays
Meetsu’s AR view (right).

The system has been used in our weekly researchmeeting for over one year, receiving positive feedback
from the users and showing positive results in terms ofpromoting communication. Our experience with thesystem encouraged us to formally investigate theseeffects with different meeting groups.
We have conducted a user study with two groups(consisting of professors and students) that used Meetsu
for three weeks to mediate their weekly presentation
meetings. Their levels of WTC before and after using thesystem were then evaluated. The results show
statistically significant improvement for Group 1 in their
WTC scores.
2 Background
Despite the advances made in remote communication
which allow users to meet at any time and fromanywhere in the world, co-located (face-to-face)meetings are still commonplace in organizational
environments. The need of bringing people together,where they share the same space and time, remains
strongly meaningful. The cues involved in a face-to-facemeeting, such as body language, gestures and facial
expression, enable stronger persuasion and more intense
discussion. The importance of these two factors can beseen in Presentation Meeting.
The style of this type of meeting is much preferredwhen, for example, ideas have to be pitched to a board of
directors or research work are to be presented to aknowledgeable audience. Even though a co-locatedmeeting provides all the ideal cues, it tends to empower

This work was motivated by our belief that AR still
has an unexplored potential to enhance communication
by annotating the real world with information. In
addition, few works on AR have targeted support forcommunication in co-located meetings, and an importantquestion remains: how to improve communication in
face-to-face meetings, which can be considered as theideal communication setting?
While this work can be used for remotecommunication scenarios and different meeting styles,
our main goal is improving communication in co-locatedPresentation Meetings, with a presenter and a small
audience.
4 Related Work
Earlier works addressing meeting support led to thedevelopment of electronic meeting systems (EMS), first
introduced by [4] using information technology tosupport the group work in meetings such as mediating
discussion and organizing outcomes [5]. Over the years,
however, research on EMS was directed mostly toremote communication support, with little work on
co-located communication. The latter is addressed inexperimental solutions such as [6] and [7], both of which
focus on the artifact sharing and broadcasting of
information, with a few notes on supporting co-locatedcommunication.
[8] reports a series of experimental conference systems
that aim at supporting co-located communication using
mainly chat-based approaches using front screens as
display method and notebooks as interaction device.
ComicChat [9] consisted of a chat screen with input fromthe audience used to help participants to engage indiscussion. The chat screen was mainly used to show theconversation flow of the participants in a text-basedformat over a comics layout. The results showed a highmessage generation ratio. Furthermore, the audience
showed a strong interest in using such a system.

Almeida・Yamamoto・Taketomi・Miyazaki・Kato: Increasing Willingness to Communicate in Co-located Presentation Meetings using Augmented Reality

Shortcomings of this work included the difficulty in
identifying the chat speakers due to the limited numberof avatars made available. Also, the attention given to thechat-screen was distracted from real world discussion.
Lock-on-Chat [10] proposed chat discussion on top of
the presentation slides. Participants annotated the slides
at any desired location using their devices. The front
screen was operated by an appointed operator in order toflip through the slides and scroll over the chat. While it
has merits for allowing multiple chats to occur
simultaneously in different slides, it makes thediscussion scattered, and difficult to be addressed offline.
Another approach is called ChatScape [11] whichfeatures the use of text and image. Two images aresnapped by the system at the moment of the text input.
These images are displayed on the front screen as aflipping animation annotated by the text in what isargued to be the conveyance of a stronger message.
However, only a few participants can be featured at oncein the front screen.
In Radi-Hey [12], audio interaction is the main method
used during a presentation. A web interface provides amenu of predefined sounds for a limited number of
emotions/phrases, such as laughter, yes, no among others.
A speaker in the room emits the sound selected from themenu from any number of participants at once. The idea
to give an instant feedback to the presenter however caneasily be perceived as nuisance.
Although our approach is unlike any of the previous
systems, since it is an AR based system, theseexperimental systems provided insights on the suitability
and reliability of using text-based chat, front screen as
display technique and hand-held devices as interaction
method for the meeting scenario.
Most recently, [13] introduced an AR system forsupporting educational presentations which enables the
speaker to visualize the feedback from an audience
regarding their level of understanding. Each audience
member inputs feedback using mobile devices. The
feedback is displayed as augmented icons to the speaker,
who is equipped with a head-mounted display (HMD). A
fiducial marker is used as a location reference for the
positioning of the virtual icons above a user’s head. Our
work, on the other hand, transmits the audience’s
feedback to the audience themselves as well as to the
speaker, much attention given to the effectiveness of thecommunication between participants.

5 Willingness to communicate (WTC)This section describes the importance of WTC tocommunication research and the meaning of motivation
to our approach. Further details about the assessment of
WTC are also described.
5.1 Importance of WTC
According to [14], there are three basic requirements
to communicate efficiently: being motivated tocommunicate, being knowledgeable about the situation,and being skilled at sending and receiving messages.
These are considered to be the foundation of competentcommunication. The motivation to communicate isconsidered the first priority.
By definition, motivation can be perceived as“something that motivates” or “the state of being
motivated”. In this work, the latter is the main focus.
Furthermore, motivation can be divided into two types
based on the factors that induce a person to the state ofbeing motivated: intrinsic (“to do something because it isinherently interesting or enjoyable”) and extrinsic (“to dosomething because it leads to a separable outcome”) [15].
In general, intrinsic motivation is a complex matter andhighly dependable on each person’s feeling therefore it
becomes very hard to affect and measure objectively. On
the other hand, we argue that extrinsic motivation must
be taken into account in the conception of a meeting
support system using AR.
In a meeting context, extrinsic motivation tocommunicate includes explicit and implicit external
factors. The explicit external factors include receiving a
grade or praise, seeking approval from others, or aiming
at self-affirmation. The implicit factors concern about thepressure of being one of the few participants not actively
participating in the meeting or the approachable
atmosphere in which a person feels motivated by seeing
others in the same position participating.
5.2 WTC scores, sub-scores and groups
Motivation can be assessed from a negative
perspective, when the person’s anxiety aboutcommunication is the target. However, it has been more
successfully assessed from a positive perspective, when
the person’s willingness to communicate is the main
focus. The latter assessment uses the WTC scale as ameasure.
The WTC scale is measured using a questionnaire
format. A person must indicate the percentage of times
he/she would choose to communicate in 20 situations. Of

日本バーチャルリアリティ学会論文誌

the 20 items on the instrument, eight are used merely to
distract from the meaningful items. The scores range
from 0 to 100 percent, 0 representing Never and 100
representing Always. The average of the scores willaccount for the overall WTC score. In addition,
receiver-type and context-type sub-scores can also be
calculated. Receiver-type sub-scores are divided into
three categories: stranger, acquaintance and friend. The
score for each category is calculated by adding the scoresof their three corresponding items of the questionnaire.
Similarly, the context-type sub-scores are divided into
four contexts: group discussion, meetings, interpersonal
speaking and public speaking.
A classification based on ranges of scores is also
applied as norms for WTC scores. There are three groups
into which a person can be classified: Low WTC (<52),
Average WTC (>=52 and <=82) and High WTC (>82)
groups. The low WTC group is considered the criticalgroup since it consists of the people with the lowest
WTC scores and therefore those who need more
attention or incentive. The sub-scores classification isdifferent for each type of receiver and context.
In this research, special attention is paid to thecontext-type sub-score for the meeting context. The
lowest, critical, group is also of particular interest since itis the one which might reflect more clearly theeffectiveness of the system. The score range to classify
the context-type sub-score for the meeting context wasaltered in order to incorporate the people on the verge of
Low WTC scores in the molds of [16]. The following
ranges were determined: Low WTC (<70), Average
WTC (>=70 and <80) and High WTC (>=80). Table 1
summarizes the score ranges discussed above.
Table 1 Summary of WTC score ranges.
Low WTC
Overall score
ranges<52

Meeting
Sub-score
ranges<70

Avg. WTC>=52 and<=82>=70 and<80

High WTC>82>=80

6 Meetsu: Augmented Reality-Based Co-locatedElectronic Meeting Support
This section describes an overview of our electronic
meeting support system Meetsu, including our approach
to motivate participants, the system design, development,
current required setup, available features and systemversions.

Vol.19, No.1, 2014

6.1 Approach
The question raised earlier in this paper regarded thebest way to improve communication in co-locatedmeetings. Communication research showed us that
motivation is one of the key components of efficient
communication. Therefore, our system’s approach
proposes a method to target motivation by applying AR.
The extrinsic motivation factors described in section
5.1 contain important elements which can affect them. A
student interested in receiving a grade or praise needs
ways to have himself and his contribution (question)
noticed by the professors; a student that feels pressured
to participate when seeing others actively participating
can easily understand this setting when showed who andhow much others are participating; a person that builds
confidence to participate by seeing his peers participating
benefits from clearly understanding who and to what
extent they are participating. Thus, perceiving who areparticipating and how much they are participating are
key elements to perceiving motivation factors in a
meeting scenario. As a result, it is reasonable to assume
that the easier it is for the participants to perceive theseelements, the higher the chance they can get motivated.
We advocate that AR makes the task of identifying
who asked a question and how much contribution has
been put out more intuitive to be perceived. By showing
a comment or icon above the real world image of aparticipant, the key elements of motivation become
instantly recognizable.
6.2 System Design
In the first development phase of Meetsu, we met withprofessors and students in order to identify possible
problems in a presentation meeting scenario that could
be overcome using AR. The professors wanted a systemthat would raise the students’ interest in participatingwith questions and comments, while the students
mentioned the long meeting hours (3 to 4 hours on
average) and their reluctance to ask questions (some due
to shyness; others concerned about interrupting thepresentation).
The answers also addressed the roles of chairman andspeaker. It was considered tiresome for the chairman to
manage the turn-taking during the Q&A session (always
asking for further questions or comments). Also, finding
a way to increase feedback from the audience wasconsidered desirable for the speakers.
While the professors’ comments were taken as themain criteria for the development of the system, theAlmeida・Yamamoto・Taketomi・Miyazaki・Kato: Increasing Willingness to Communicate in Co-located Presentation Meetings using Augmented Reality

students’ remarks raised an interesting discussion about
the Q&A phenomenon in a typical meeting scenario.
Every participant has different levels of WTC in a
meeting, with some people asking more questions thanothers. If we could increase the WTC levels of theparticipants, this would increase the likelihood of moreparticipants asking questions and making comments,
which would result in a more productive meeting.
In light of the information gathered, we designed a
web-based meeting support system to motivate them tocommunicate in a meeting. In our proposed system,
Meetsu, the audience is allowed to submit questions at
any time in the meeting. These questions are displayed to
all participants on a large front screen (Meetsu screen)
which acts as a virtual mirror in which all participants
can be seen. This system configuration was deemed moresuitable for use in the meeting scenario than otherapproaches to AR, such as the use of HMDs. Requiring
each participant to wear a HMD would have been
unaffordable, and problematic for noticing new questions
from participants who are out of sight. Other discarded
approaches included the sole use of smartphones, which
was deemed to affect meeting manners since it would
require targeting of the device towards other participants.
We supposed that by displaying the questions andcomments from the participants through the system, we
could encourage the audience to communicate more
actively. In addition, since there would be no need to
wait until the Q&A session to ask a question. This
procedure could also mitigate a reluctance to formulatequestions and, through writing instead of speaking, help
shy persons participate.
We also developed a set of interactive icons which
could be used to express pre-defined ideas such as “Ihave a question”. This feature is designed for participants
who want to ask a question but might not have it ready.
This would help the chairman during the turn-taking
process by seeing in advance who has a question.
Each of these features (described in detail in section
6.3.2) can help with the management of a meeting andthe creation of a more dynamic meeting environment thatmight shorten the overall meeting time.
6.3 System Development
6.3.1
Overview of the system
Meetsu is a web-based AR system developed as a
combination of PHP and JQuery libraries. PostgreSQL isused as a database management system to record actions
performed by the audience through the Web UI such as

submitted questions and clicked icons. The combinationof this information with the live image captured by the
webcam creates the web-based AR view (see section
6.3.3 for details) which is displayed on the Meetsu screen.
Figure 2 shows the overview of the system. A PointGrey
Flea2 camera is positioned above the presentation screen,
overlooking the audience, capturing a live image of theroom. All participants face a wide white canvas onto
which two computer screens are projected. One displays
the presenter’s slides and the other contains the live
camera feed of the room on top of which Meetsu’s AR
feature is displayed.
Participants accessed the system through a web
browser using Notebooks and iPads. They have to create
and access their personal accounts in Meetsu before theycan virtually attend a session. When attending a session,
users are required to perform a manual registration stepby locating themselves in the live video feed using amouse click or finger tap, depending on the device.

Fig.2 Overview of the system.

Although the definition of AR is still open to
discussion, we considered the basis of AR to be themerging of a real image with computer-generated
imagery regardless of its implementation. For prototypal
purposes, all displayed annotations are two-dimensional
images, and the registration required for the AR feature
is done manually.
6.3.2
Web-based UIThe system contains an online version of thepresentation slide, which is uploaded by the speaker
before the meeting. The digital file is made available
within the web interface, from which users can follow
the presentation (Figure 4[a]). An optional automatic
mode allows the online slides to be changed in sync withthe slides being presented (Figure 4[b]). If the user isbrowsing through the slides, this mode allows the user tochange to the slide currently being presented. Thiseliminates the need for printed copies and makes it easierfor the audience to navigate through the slides. A remote日本バーチャルリアリティ学会論文誌

Vol.19, No.1, 2014

Fig.3 Available features in the web-based UI of Meetsu

presentation control was also implemented. This allows
the participants to address their question to a specificslide easily, without having the speaker search for thatslide (Figure 4[c]).
Users can submit questions and comments through a
web submission form by typing in the text field andclicking the submit button (Figure 4[d]). Once submitted,
a question is automatically included in the question list,
which is updated in real-time and made available to all
attendees (Figure 4[e]). At the same time, an AR
annotation is displayed on the video at the user’s location(acquired from the manual registration step). In regards
to the question list interface, users have two buttons
available for each comment.
The first button is the Good! button (Figure 4[f]). It issimilar in function to the Like button in Facebook, being
used by participants to show their agreement with aparticularly interesting remark. The second button is theHighlight button (Figure 4[g]). This button visuallyhighlights the AR annotation (by changing thebackground color) of the corresponding comment. Also
displayed in the same AR fashion as the submitted
questions and comments, the interactive icons are used toexpress a limited range of expressions such as “I have aquestion”, “I’m confused”, “I Agree,” “I Disagree”(Figure 1[h, from top to bottom]). The icons were
designed to allow introverted participants to interact
readily. Lastly, participants were encouraged to use a bug
report feature (Figure 4[i]) to record problems or
technical difficulties while using the system.

6.3.3
AR view
The AR view displays virtual information such as text
annotations and icons onto the users in the real meetingroom environment (Figure 3). This view provides aneasy understanding of the users’ identity and location in
the real world alongside their respective annotations.
Therefore, in a meeting, it becomes easy to understand
who asked a question and where in the room this person
is located. In addition, the meeting participants can grasp
the overall impression of the audience, while being able
to track which topics are currently being discussed.
The real world view allows the participants to observe
themselves and others in the environment, therefore we
suppose that the AR view in the meeting support systemprovides a more personal and engaging experience to theparticipants.

AR iconannotation

AR text
annotation
Fig.4 Close-up of the AR View showing the AR icons and text
annotations rendered on the live feed of the meeting room.

Almeida・Yamamoto・Taketomi・Miyazaki・Kato: Increasing Willingness to Communicate in Co-located Presentation Meetings using Augmented Reality

7 User Study Design
This section describes the details on the study’s
subjects, context, measures, design and procedures.
7.1 Participants and Context
The data were collected for this study from graduate
students, researchers and professors of two different
lab groups. The average ages for Group 1 and Group 2
were 26.8 and 24.6, respectively. Each group consistedof over 20 participants; however the data of theparticipants who did not attend all meeting sessions
were eventually discarded. The final sample sizes forGroup 1 and Group 2 were 16 (five females and 11
males) and 20 (one female and 19 males), respectively.
Group 1 was composed of one staff researcher and 15
students. Group 2 was comprised of three professors
and 17 students.
According to the demographic survey, 44% of theparticipants in Group 1 and 100% in Group 2 had priorexperience with an AR system. 6% of the participantsin Group 1 and 20% in Group 2 had previous
experience with a meeting support system.
The meetings of both groups were hosted in the same
meeting room where Meetsu had been previously set up.
Both wired and wireless network connections were madeavailable. The groups’ meeting schedules weremaintained as had been decided in advance according to
the groups’ agenda. Therefore, it was predetermined who
the speaker would be and how many presentations would
be held each day. The meetings were conducted by theparticipants themselves following their group’s usual
meeting style regarding turn-taking strategy and time
limit.
7.2 Measures
The WTC scale was used to obtain a measure of thelikelihood of each group to initiate communication. This
likelihood was measured twice for each group, on thefirst and last days of the experiments in order todemonstrate the effect of the system on this measure.
Given the focus of this study on the meeting scenario,
only the average WTC scores in the meeting context
were considered for further analysis. Moreover, eachgroup was subdivided into High WTC, Average WTCgroup and Low WTC, according to scores on the first
WTC survey, following the scale in section 5.2. The
critical group (Low WTC group) became the main target
since it was assumed to be the one to benefit the mostfrom the experience.

In addition to the WTC scale, 7-point Likert-scalequestionnaires were made available online and wereanswered by the participants after each meeting session,
1 representing Disagree and 7 representing Agree. The
following statements were assessed: (Q1) I was
distracted by the system, (Q2) The system made me
anxious to participate, (Q3) The system made me willingto participate, and (Q4) The system made me engage inreal-world conversation with other participants.
Subjective comments were also collected.
The Likert-scale measures were used to indicate howeach version of the system contributed to theparticipant’s meeting experience. In addition, a final
comparison questionnaire, asking their preference
regarding each version, was given. These measures
aimed at indicating which system was more effective,
and, therefore, had the biggest impact on any significant
change of WTC scores before and after using the system.
7.3 Methodology
A formal user study was designed to investigate thefollowing hypothesis:- The use of an AR meeting support system cansignificantly improve the levels of WTC in
co-located presentation meeting contexts.
This study used a within-subjects design where allparticipants experienced the system under the same
circumstances of environment (same meeting place),
period of experiments (once every week for three weeks)and conditions (AR and Non-AR).
First, a paired two-tailed t-test was used to analyze thechange in the WTC mean scores before and after using
Meetsu. The critical significance level used was 0.05.
These results were used to note the impact of Meetsu on
communication. Following this analysis, the Wilcoxon
signed-rank test and the frequencies of the Likert-scalequestionnaires were used to evaluate the performance of
the AR and the Non-AR versions of the system. Bothversions were compared and evaluated according tomeasures of distraction, anxiety, willingness andengaging in communication.
7.4 Procedure
Both groups gathered separately for weekly
presentation meetings for three weeks. The two versionsof the system were used alternately by each group, in adifferent order to minimize carry over effects. Group 1
used the AR version of the system in the first two weeks
and the Non-AR version in the third week. Group 2
used the AR version of the system in the first and third日本バーチャルリアリティ学会論文誌

weeks and the Non-AR version in the second week. Bothgroups used the AR version on the first day of theexperiments in order to instruct the participants on how
to use the AR features of the system. A non-participative
observation process took place during all the meetings.
The following table describes the methodological andtime triangulation used for this experiment.
Table 2 Table of methodological and time triangulation

Observation
report
Day 1
Day 2

WTC
SurveyAR
SurveyX

7.5 ResultsGroup 1 had seven speakers making presentations in
the three days of experiments, while Group 2 had eight
presentations altogether. Both groups averaged around 40
minutes per presentation with an average time per day of
93 minutes for Group 1 and 118 minutes for Group 2.
The overall meeting time throughout the three weeks forGroup 1 was 281 minutes and 354 minutes for Group 2.
The overall meeting time can also be interpreted as theamount of time each group was exposed to the systemover the three weeks of experiments (Table 3).
Table 3 Total number of presentations per group, average time

X

Day 3
Day 4

Non-AR
SurveyVol.19, No.1, 2014of presentations and overall meeting time.

X*
XGroup 1

Group 2

7

8

Average time per presentation (minutes)

40.14

44.25

Average time per meeting day (minutes)

93

118

Overall meeting time (minutes)

281

354

X*

* The order of the AR and Non-AR surveys varied.

In day 1, the researcher joined each group’s weekly
meeting for a day to observe their meeting style prior to
the use of Meetsu. The difference in the meeting flow
between the two groups was mainly the timing to ask aquestion. Group 1 would ask questions mostly at the endof the presentation, while Group 2 would interrupt thepresentation to ask a question. Neither of the groups hada chairman.
7.4.1
Conditions: AR and Non-AR
Meetsu was originally developed as a web-based AR
system. However, the need to compare our system withprevious approaches led us to the development of a
Non-AR version. The Non-AR version differs from theAR version in two ways: the way to display participants’
input and features available.
While the AR version of Meetsu uses the second
presentation screen to show the live video feed of themeeting room where all the AR annotations are displayed,
the Non-AR version displays all the input from theaudience as plain text much like the question list
available in the web UI (Figure 5). All the features
directly related to the AR view, such as the interactive
icons and the highlight button, are disabled in the
Non-AR version.

Total number of presentations

The research question seeks to investigate if the use of
Meetsu affects the levels of WTC in a meeting scenario.
The descriptive statistics present the meeting sub-scores
before and after the use of Meetsu. The results (see Table4) indicate an increase in the scores of both groups.
Group 1 increased around 10 points (from 56.69 to 66.27)
and Group 2 increased around 3 points (from 55.65 to 58.55).
Table 4 Average of Meeting sub-scores per group.

N

Mean
Before

Mean
After

StDev
Before

StDev
After

Group 1

16

56.69

66.27

22.85422.507

Group 2

20

55.65

58.55

21.03423.543In order to determine the significance of thisimprovement, a paired t-test was employed to analyze
the data (see Table 5). The results were t(15)=-2.692,
two-tail p=0.017, suggesting that a statisticallysignificant result for a confidence level of 95% wasachieved for Group 1. At t(19)=-0.804, two-tail p=0.431,
no significant difference was found for Group 2.
Table 5 Paired t-Test for Meeting sub-scores per group.

Fig.5 AR (left) and Non-AR (right) views as display on thefront screen, also referred as Meetsu screen.

T

Df

Sig. (2-tailed)Group 1

-2.69215

0.017Group 2-0.80419

0.431

Both groups had a high concentration of subjects in
the Low WTC group, with 56% of Group 1 (9 out of 16)
and 75% of Group 2 (15 out 20). Tables 6 and 7
summarize how the system affected the Low WTC

Almeida・Yamamoto・Taketomi・Miyazaki・Kato: Increasing Willingness to Communicate in Co-located Presentation Meetings using Augmented Reality

groups in Group 1 and Group 2. Similar to the overall
meeting sub-score, the meeting sub-score of Low WTC
groups increased for both groups. Group 1 increasedaround 14 points (from 40.59 to 54.11) and Group 2
increased around 3 points (from 47.76 to 50.09).
Table 6 Average of Meeting sub-scores from Low WTC group.

N

Mean
Before

Mean
After

StDev
Before

StDev
After

Low WTC(Group 1)

9

40.59

54.11

16.48119.018Low WTC(Group 2)

15

47.76

50.09

17.62019.812

With a result of t(8)=-2.698, two-tail p=0.027 forGroup 1, a statistically significant difference between
before and after using Meetsu can be observed in the
Low WTC group. No significant difference was observedfor Group 2 at t(14)=-0.525, two-tail p=0.608.
Table 7 Paired t-Test for Meeting sub-scores of Low WTC.

t

DfSig. (2-tailed)

Low WTC(Group 1)-2.6988

0.027

Low WTC(Group 2)-0.52514

0.608

Table 8 Wilcoxon signed-rank test results showing the medianscore of each version of the system within each group in each
assessed measure (Q1=distraction, Q2=anxiety, Q3=willingness
and Q4=engage in real world conversation).
Measures
Q1
Q2
Group
1

Q3
Q4

Q1
Q2
Group
2

Q3
Q4

N

MedianNon-AR

16

4.0

AR

16

3.0

NonAR

16

2.0

AR

16

2.0

NonAR

16

4.0

AR

16

4.0

Non-AR

16

4.0

AR

16

4.0

Non-AR

20

2.0

AR

20

2.5

Non-AR

20

2.0

AR

20

1.5

Non-AR

20

4.0

AR

20

4.0

Non-AR

20

4.0

AR

20

4.0

Z

Sig.
(2-tailed)-2.2890.022-0.1040.917-0.5860.558-0.3330.739-0.1060.916-0.7490.454-1.3380.181-0.447

0.655

The results for the four measures assessed using
Likert-scale are shown in Table 8. A Wilcoxon
signed-rank test was used to determine whether there is adifference in the scores for the AR and the Non-AR
versions. The results indicate that there is significant
difference in how Group 1 perceived distraction (Q1),z=-2.289, p=0.022. In other words, the participants fromGroup 1 were more distracted using the Non-AR version(Median=4.0) than the AR version (Median=3.0). The
remaining measures had equal median scores for bothversions therefore no significant difference was found.
The distraction (Q1) measure for Group 2 indicatedthat the participants were more distracted using the AR
version (Median=2.5) than the Non-AR (Median=2.0).
The measure for anxiety (Q2) indicated that theparticipants felt that the system made them more anxious
to participate when using the Non-AR (Median=2.0)
version than the AR (Median=1.5). No significant
difference was found in any of the measures from Group 2.
Table 9 shows the frequency table of answers for thecomparison between AR and Non-AR versions. The
participants were asked to choose the preferred version
for each of the measures from the Likert-scale. An
estimated 69% of the participants in Group 1 and 85% ofGroup 2 considered the AR version more distracting. The
system was considered to make one willing to participate
by an estimated 62.5% of the participants in Group 1 and
45% of Group 2. Similarly, about 62.5% of Group 1 and
75% of Group 2 considered the system to have madethem engage in real-world conversation.
Question 2 was the only measure which showed adisagreement between the groups. While an estimated
62.5% of Group 1 considered that the system made themmore anxious to participate, participants with the same
opinion represented 45% of Group 2.
Apart from asking the participants their opinions on
how much they think each system stimulated their
participation, a rundown of their actual participation during
Table 9 Frequency table of the comparison results showing
which system was chosen in each assessed measured.
Group 1 (N=16)Group 2 (N=20)

Frequency (Percent)Frequency (Percent)AR

Non-ARAR

Non-ARQ1

11 (69.0%)

5 (31.0%)

17 (85.0%)

3 (15.0%)Q2

10 (62.5%)

6 (37.5%)

9 (45.0%)

11 (55.0%)

Q3

11 (69.0%)

5 (31.0%)

16 (80%)4 (20.0%)Q4

10 (62.5%)

6 (37.5%)

15 (75.0%)

5 (25.0%)日本バーチャルリアリティ学会論文誌

Table 10 Number and percentage of questions/comments
collected by each type of system per WTC group.
Group 1

Group 2

AR

Non-ARAR

Non-AR

High WTC

4 (28.5%)5 (50%)00

Avg WTC

4 (28.5%)

3 (30%)

00

Low WTC

6 (43%)

2 (20%)

36 (100%)

10 (100%)

14

10

36

10

Total

the meetings was extracted from the system’s database.
These additional results present the number of questions
and comments produced by each group over the threedays of experiments. Table 10 details the numbers per
WTC group and per system version.
Both groups participated more under the AR versionof the system with Group 1 and Group 2 producing 14
and 36 questions/comments, respectively. For Group 1, a
breakdown of these numbers showed that the inputs fromthe Low WTC Group accounted for the highest
participation among the three WTC groups with 43% of
all the inputs when using the AR version. The samegroup accounted for 20% of all the inputs when using the
Non-AR version, the lowest participation rate.
8 Discussion
8.1 Communication
Both groups showed an increase in WTC meeting
sub-scores, overall and for the Low WTC group. Given
the higher participation rate and overall preference, theAR version can be credited as the agent of this change.
With Group 1 accounting for a statistically significant
result in both cases, this provides the first measure of
WTC for an AR system and should stimulate research on
further communication scenarios in which AR can beapplied.
While both WTC scores improved for Group 2, thesame statistical significance could not be reproduced intheir results. Nevertheless, the observation that took
place during the meetings provided a good indicator of
the participants’ positive response towards the system. In
a comparison based on the observation report produced
prior to the use of the system, it was noted that the
feedback came from beyond the usual circle of active
audience members. The more proactive participants used
speech to clearly express their ideas, while the lessprominent participants used the icons. In the end, bothcontributed to the meeting which shows that the interestin communicating was raised and at times concretized.

Vol.19, No.1, 2014

8.2 AR versus Non-AR
The comparison between the AR and the Non-AR
versions revealed interesting results, especially for theDistraction and Anxiety measures.
Both groups perceived the AR version as being more
distracting. The first interpretation of this result was
negative, since distraction was understood as somethingthat interferes in a meeting. However, the perceived
distraction did not prevent the groups from using the AR
version more than the Non-AR. An additional survey was
conducted in order to further investigate the perceived
distraction. Both groups were asked to answer a
two-question questionnaire using 7-point Likert scales,
this time focused on the AR view instead of the wholesystem. The first question asked to what degree thesubject felt the AR view was distracting in order to verify
the consistency with the previous results. The second
question asked to what degree the subject’s concentration
was hindered by the AR view.
As shown in Table 11, the results of the first question
showed that the average of distraction associated with
the AR view remained consistently lower than the
Non-AR view for Group 1, and higher than the Non-ARview for Group 2. Both groups scored low averages inthe second question (Group 1 scored 2.4 and Group 2scored 2.3), which demonstrated that the AR view did
not prevent the participants from concentrating in themeeting. Following the questionnaire, a short interview
took place to directly ask the participants to detail theirperceived distraction.
Overall, the participants who considered the AR view
as more distracting reported that it was more intuitive,
since they could easily identify the owner of thecomment, allowing them to quickly return to the realworld discussion. On the other hand, the participants
who considered the Non-AR view as more distracting
reasoned that the text-based nature of view compelledthem to read the entries, which made them spend moretime than desired, either reading the comments or
identifying the owner.
Table 11 Comparison of distraction average from AR view
between the previous data and the new data.

Non-ARAR (prev.)

AR (new)

Group 1

4.0

3.0

2.3

Group 2

2.0

2.5

3.0

Almeida・Yamamoto・Taketomi・Miyazaki・Kato: Increasing Willingness to Communicate in Co-located Presentation Meetings using Augmented Reality

Fig.6 Distraction based on time of use for two groups:
short-term (three weeks) and long-term (over six months).

Furthermore, the AR view was considered the livelier
due to the animations (icons and text popping) and thefaces of the people in the room, which prompted
participants to pay more attention to it, while the
Non-AR was considered unattractive.
An additional comparison of perceived distraction for
two groups based on how long they have used the system
was also conducted. The short-term group includes theresults gathered from Group 1 and Group 2 over three
weeks of experiments. The long-term group shows
results of a survey conducted in our lab with participants
who have been using the system for over six months (13participants at the time of this survey).
As shown in Figure 6, the perceived distraction ishighly affected by how familiar the participants are to thetechnology, as it can be noted by the decrease in bothmeasures for the long-term group. Based on the resultsfrom the survey, we can conclude that the distraction
associated with the AR view carried a positive meaning
for the participants, unlike the Non-AR. Nevertheless,the perceived distraction is likely to decrease as theparticipants become more used to the technology.
The Anxiety measure was the only measure in which
the groups did not agree. Group 1 felt the AR version
caused more anxiety than the Non-AR version while
Group 2 felt otherwise. Group 1 is particularlyinteresting, since while they considered the AR version
to cause more anxiety, they also considered this version
to make them more willing to participate. It may be that
the AR version has have a quality that raises the levels ofanxiety, but this does not seem to be detrimental, giventhat the Group 1 had the best results out of the twogroups.
Following the analysis of the results, we concluded
that the AR version performed better in three out of thefour assessed measures (Q1, Q3 and Q4), which

confirmed the effectiveness of the AR version over the
non-AR. Moreover, it is possible to affirm that the AR
version had a stronger impact on the accounted increaseof the WTC scores.
Some of the shortcomings of this work include sometechnical issues (online slides were flickering for someusers) and unclear procedures for the speaker regarding
the displayed questions. Since the questions weredisplayed at any time, the speakers got confused as towhether they should answer immediately or not. To
quote one of the speakers, “I don't know when to answer
the questions”. Moreover, the displayed questions were
not numbered or ordered, the highlight button being theonly option available to identify the current topic. Thiscan be considered a downside of the current AR
implementation. The Non-AR version did not suffer fromthe same problem, since it was shown as a list ofquestions given in the order of submission.
9 Conclusion and Future Work
We have introduced a web-based AR meeting support
system, Meetsu, which aims at increasing WTC in a
co-located presentation meeting scenario. We havedescribed the motivation and relevant works in the fieldalong with the contributions of that research, which
included the use of AR technology for promoting
communication, and we have presented the first measureof WTC for AR technology. We conducted a formal user
study using communication measures, and the results
show that AR can increase the overall WTC meeting
sub-scores with great effect on the critical WTC group(Low WTC Group).
A natural extension of this work would be extending
the system’s features and applying it to different
scenarios, to classroom lectures, for instance. Also, thiswork could benefit from new experiments involving
different audience sizes (e.g., groups of five, 20 and 50)
and configurations (involving people who do not knoweach other, for example) to investigate their impact on
the communication measures.
Even though the use of WTC provided a first attempt
to measure the effect of AR on communication, otherimportant factors such as anxiety can be formallyassessed by the appropriate measure such as the Personal
Report on Communication Anxiety (PRCA-24).
Extended work is also needed to address remote uses of
AR. It can be interesting to see how consistently thesecommunication measures perform when the participants
do not share the cues of being face-to-face.

日本バーチャルリアリティ学会論文誌

References[1]

I. S. Almeida, M. A. Oikawa, J. P. Carres, J. Miyazaki, H. Kato, M.
Billinghurst: AR-based Video-Mediated Communication: A Social
Presence Enhancing Experience; SVR, 125-130 (2012, May)

[2]

T. B. Faas: An Examination of Social Presence in Video
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J. C. McCroskey: Reliability and Validity of the Willingness to
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A. R. Dennis, J. F. George, L. M. Jessup, J. F. Nunamaker Jr. and D. R.
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Co-located Collaboration in Hospital Work; International Conference

Vol.19, No.1, 2014

(0 = Never to 100 = Always)_____1. Talk with a service station attendant.
_____2. Talk with a physician.
_____3. Present a talk to a group of strangers.
_____4. Talk with an acquaintance while standing in line.
_____5. Talk with a salesperson in a store.
_____6. Talk in a large meeting of friends.
_____7. Talk with a police officer.
_____8. Talk in a small group of strangers.
_____9. Talk with a friend while standing in line.
_____10. Talk with a waiter/waitress in a restaurant.
_____11. Talk in a large meeting of acquaintances.
_____12. Talk with a stranger while standing in line.
_____13. Talk with a secretary.
_____14. Present a talk to a group of friends.
_____15. Talk in asmall group of acquaintances.
_____16. Talk with a garbage collector.
_____17. Talk in a large meeting of strangers.
_____18. Talk with a spouse (or girl/boyfriend).
_____19. Talk in a small group of friends.
_____20. Present a talk to a group of acquaintances.
(2013 年 9 月 30 日受付)

on Groupware, 255-270 (2007, Sept.)[8][Biography]

Y. Ayatsuka and N. Kawaguchi. Challenges for Conference
Augmentation Systems in WISS; JSSST Computer Software, 23(4),76-81 (2006, Oct.).

[9]J. Rekimoto and Y. Ayatsuka: Adding Another Communication

Igor de Souza Almeida

Channel to Reality: An Experience with a Chat-Augmented(Non-member)
Igor de Souza Almeida received his Bachelor

Conference; CHI, 271-272 (1998, Apr.)[10] T. Nishida and T. Igarashi. Lock-on-Chat: Boosting Anchoreddegree in Computer Science from Universidade

Conversation and its Operation at a Technical Conference;Federal do Pará (UFPA), Brazil in 2006. He

INTERACT, 970-973 (2005, Sept.).

received his M.E. in Information Science from[11] Y. Ayatsuka, N. Matsushita and J. Rekimoto. ChatScape: a visual
informal communication tool in communities; CHI EA, 327-328(2001).
[12] Y. Kato and T. Naemura. Radi-Hey: Opinion Sharing System while
Listening to Radio; IPSJ Interaction, 32-39 (2013, Feb.).
[13] A. Montero, T. Zarraonandia, I. Aedo and P. Diaz: Uses ofNara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan
in 2011. His interests are in research and development of AR-based
communication systems and human factors.
Goshiro Yamamoto

Augmented Reality for Supporting Educational Presentations; IEEE

(Member)
Goshiro Yamamoto received his B.E., M.E.,

ICALT, 426-428 (2013, Jul.).

and[14] S. Morreale: Assessing motivation to communicate: willingness to

Ph.D.

in

Engineering

from

Osaka

communicate and personal report of communication apprehension;

University, Japan in 2004, 2006, and 2009

National Communication Association: Washington D.C, USA (2007)

respectively. He joined the Graduate School of[15] R. M. Ryan and E. L. Deci. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations:Classic Definitions and New Directions; Contemporary
Educational Psychology, 25(1), 54-67 (2000, Jan.).
[16] The Center for Excellence in Oral Communication, 2005.

Natural Science and Technology at Okayama
University in 2009. Since 2011, he joined the Graduate School ofInformation Science at Nara Institute of Science and Technology.

http://www.learningace.com/doc/218449/2be6f9e4a22dc6f3a8d0b70e
e19aa80f/oral-communication-assessment-program.

A Appendix
A.1 WTC Questionnaire
Directions: Below are 20 situations in which a person mightchoose to communicate or not to communicate. Presume you
have completely free choice. Indicate the percentage of times
you would choose to communicate in each type of situation.
Indicate in the space at theleft of the item what percent of thetime you would choose to communicate.

Takafumi Taketomi(Member)
Takafumi Taketomi received his B.E. degreefrom National Institute for Academic Degrees
and University Evaluation in 2006. He received
his M.E. and Ph.D. degrees in information
science from Nara Institute of Science andTechnology in 2008 and 2011. He is an assistant professor at Nara
Institute of Science and Technology since 2011.

Almeida・Yamamoto・Taketomi・Miyazaki・Kato: Increasing Willingness to Communicate in Co-located Presentation Meetings using Augmented Reality

Jun Miyazaki(Non-Member)
Jun Miyazaki received his B.E. degree from
Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1992, andboth M.S. degree and Ph.D from Japan
Advanced Institute of Science and Technology(JAIST), Ishikawa, Japan, in 1994, 1997,

respectively. He worked as an associate professor of Graduate Schoolof Information Science, Nara Institute of Science and Technology,
Nara, Japan from 2003 through 2013. He is currently a professor at theGraduate School of Information Science and Engineering, Tokyo
Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan.
Hirokazu Kato

(Member)
Hirokazu Kato is a professor in the Nara
Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST),
Japan. He received his B.E., M.E. and Dr. Eng.
degrees from Osaka University, Japan in 1986,
1988 and 1996, respectively. He joined theFaculty of Engineering Science at Osaka University, from 1989 to
1999. In 1999, he joined the Faculty of Information Sciences at
Hiroshima City University, Japan. In 2003, he joined the Graduate
School of Engineering Science at Osaka University. Since 2007, he has
been with the Graduate School of Information Science of NAIST. He
studied pattern recognition and computer vision. When he joined the
Human Interface Technology Laboratory (HIT Lab) at the Universityof Washington as a visiting scholar in 1998, he started a research on
Augmented Reality which is currently his main research topic. He
received the Virtual Reality Technical Achievement Award from IEEE
VGTC in 2009, and Lasting Impact Award at the 11th IEEE
International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality in 2012.