## 3 Materials and Methods
### Procedure  
The experiment, leveraging facial recognition software for emotion recognition, received approval from MIT's Committee on the Use of Humans as Experimental Subjects (COUHES). The study employed a Posttest-Only Control Group Design, as outlined by [PERSON] and [PERSON] [61], to evaluate the impact of real-time emotional feedback on virtual team performance. Participants engaged in a collaborative problem-solving task, the Mars Colony simulation game [62], which demands effective communication and coordination. The treatment group was provided with real-time feedback on their emotional states using the Moody software (version 2.0). This system employs cameras to analyze participants' facial expressions [60], and delivers immediate feedback via a virtual mirroring dashboard [63]. The control group did not receive any feedback.  
We placed the research design in the context of the IPO model, which is a general framework for research on teamwork, and adapted it to our setup with virtual teams. Figure 1 integrates the IPO model with the variables relevant to our experiment and provides a schematic representation that illustrates their interplay and importance in our study and is adapted from [PERSON] (1964) [16].  
For the initial setup, the Mars Colony game and a real-time emotional feedback dashboard built into Moody [60; 63] (for the treatment group) were arranged on the desktop (see Figure 2). Participants were welcomed and instructed to keep their cameras and microphones on throughout the experiment. The facilitator shared the game instructions and allowed five minutes for participants to read them. This reading period was included in the total game duration of 60 min. After the initial instructions, the facilitator gave a quick tour of the Mars simulation game and, for the treatment group, explained the Moody dashboard and its metrics.  
Participants were given remote control over the desktop, and the facilitator started the Moody and Zoom recordings. The facilitator then muted themselves and turned off their camera to allow participants to focus on the game. The game session lasted for approximately 50 min, with the facilitator monitoring progress and intervening only for technical issues. Participants were reminded to finalize their Mars colony configuration five minutes before the end of the session.  
After the game, participants completed a post-experiment survey that collected demographic information, assessed emotional intelligence using the \"Reading the Mind in the Eyes\" test, and gathered data on participants' familiarity with other team members and simulation games. This survey aimed to control for potential confounding variables that could influence the study's outcomes.  
The data collected from the Zoom recordings, including video and audio, was used to analyze team interactions, emotions, and communication patterns. The Moody software provided real-time feedback based on facial expressions but was not used for final analysis due to the availability of more advanced emotion analysis tools also developed at the CCI [64; 65]. The Mars simulation game data, including the history of configuration changes, was used to determine team performance.  
Figure 1: IPO Model for Virtual Teams.