ABSTRACT

Eye contact is considered a quintessential aspect of a speaker’s delivery when interacting with an audience. This exploratory study investigated a specific area of interest (AOI) exhibited by speakers in a technologically mediated virtual environment (VE). Such virtual immersion allows speakers to present to audience members and utilize their speaker notes all within a digital replication of the physical speaking environment. A Compositor Mirror Tool (CMT) enables others a first-person point-of-view through the speaker’s head mounted display. Participants (N = 12) were college students enrolled in an introductory public speaking course who completed informative and persuasive speech practices and a post-immersion survey. Seventeen presentations produced nearly 120-minutes of data. The CMT revealed insights into speakers’ AOI and managed their time between audience and speaker notes. Examination of AOI orientations revealed varying proportions for speakers with an average ratio of 60:40 (audience to speaker notes). Note design may contribute to dependence on downward AOI. Correlational analyses observed insights into speakers’ experience in the VE that relate to retrospective speech understanding. VEs coupled with CMT demonstrates promise for impacting psychomotor skills for when speakers communicate within technologically mediated environments for competent skills transfer to reality.

摘要

眼神交流被认为是演讲者与观众互动时的一个典型方面。这项探索性研究调查了演讲者在技术中介虚拟环境 (VE) 中展示的特定兴趣领域 (AOI)。这种虚拟沉浸式允许演讲者在物理演讲环境的数字复制中向听众展示并利用他们的演讲者笔记。合成器镜像工具 (CMT) 使其他人能够通过扬声器的头戴式显示器获得第一人称视角。参与者 ( N= 12) 是参加公开演讲入门课程的大学生，他们完成了信息丰富和有说服力的演讲练习以及沉浸后调查。17 场演讲产生了近 120 分钟的数据。CMT 揭示了对演讲者 AOI 的洞察，并管理他们在听众和演讲者笔记之间的时间。对 AOI 方向的检查揭示了平均比例为 60:40（听众与演讲者注释）的演讲者的不同比例。注意设计可能会导致对向下 AOI 的依赖。相关性分析观察到对与回顾性语音理解相关的 VE 中说话者体验的洞察。VE 与 CMT 相结合，证明了当演讲者在技术中介环境中进行交流以将胜任技能转移到现实时影响心理运动技能的前景。