Video chats undermine the collective intelligence of groups, but in a surprising way: It turns out it is the video, & not the chat, that is the problem. Teams with video on during calls end up syncing up less, & have less even turn-taking during meetings. Turn off your video?

Tomprou M, Kim YJ, Chikersal P, Woolley AW, Dabbish LA (2021) Speaking out of turn: How video conferencing reduces vocal synchrony and collective intelligence. PLoS ONE 16(3): e0247655, Mar 18 2021. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247655

Abstract: Collective intelligence (CI) is the ability of a group to solve a wide range of problems. Synchrony in nonverbal cues is critically important to the development of CI; however, extant findings are mostly based on studies conducted face-to-face. Given how much collaboration takes place via the internet, does nonverbal synchrony still matter and can it be achieved when collaborators are physically separated? Here, we hypothesize and test the effect of nonverbal synchrony on CI that develops through visual and audio cues in physically-separated teammates. We show that, contrary to popular belief, the presence of visual cues surprisingly has no effect on CI; furthermore, teams without visual cues are more successful in synchronizing their vocal cues and speaking turns, and when they do so, they have higher CI. Our findings show that nonverbal synchrony is important in distributed collaboration and call into question the necessity of video support.

Discussion

We explored what role, if any, video access to partners plays in facilitating collaboration when partners are not collocated. Though we found no direct effects of video access on collective intelligence or facial expression synchrony, we did find that in the video condition, facial expression synchrony predicts collective intelligence. This result suggests that when visual cues are available it is important that interaction partners attend to them. Furthermore, when video was available, social perceptiveness predicted facial synchrony, reinforcing the role this individual characteristic plays in heightening attention to available cues. We also found that prosodic synchrony improves collective intelligence in physically separated collaborators whether or not they had access to video. An important precursor to prosodic synchrony is the equality in speaking turns that emerges among collaborators, which enhances prosodic synchrony and, in turn, collective intelligence. Surprisingly, our findings suggest that video access may, in fact, impede the development of prosodic synchrony by creating greater speaking turn inequality, countering some prevailing assumptions about the importance of richer media to facilitate distributed collaboration.

Our findings build on existing research demonstrating that synchrony improves coordination [30, 33] by showing that it also improves cognitive aspects of a group, such as joint problem-solving and collective intelligence in distributed collaboration. Much of the previous research on synchrony has been conducted in face-to-face settings. We offer evidence that nonverbal synchrony can occur and is important to the level of collective intelligence in distributed collaboration. Furthermore, we demonstrate different pathways through which different types of cues can affect nonverbal synchrony and, in turn, collective intelligence. For example, prosodic synchrony and speaking turn equality seem to be important means for regulating collaboration. Speaking turns are a key communication mechanism operating in social interaction by regulating the pace at which communication proceeds, and is governed by a set of interaction rules such as yielding, requesting, or maintaining turns [18]. These rules are often subtly communicated through nonverbal cues such as eye contact and vocal cues (e.g., back channels), altering volume and rate [18]. However, our findings suggest that visual nonverbal cues may also enable some interacting partners to dominate the conversation. By contrast, we show that when interacting partners have audio cues only, the lack of video does not hinder them from communicating these rules but instead helps them to regulate their conversation more smoothly by engaging in more equal exchange of turns and by establishing improved prosodic synchrony. Previous research has focused largely on synchrony regulated by visual cues, such as studies showing that synchrony in facial expressions improves cohesion in collocated teams [30]. Our study underscores the importance of audio cues, which appear to be compromised by video access.

Our findings offer several avenues for future research on nonverbal synchrony and human collaboration. For instance, how can we enhance prosodic synchrony? Some research has examined the role of interventions to enhance speaking turn equality for decision making effectiveness [67]. Could regulating conversational behavior increase prosodic synchrony? Furthermore, does nonverbal synchrony affect collective intelligence similarly in larger groups? For example, as group size increases, a handful of team members tend to dominate the conversation [68] with implications for spoken communication, nonverbal synchrony, and ultimately collective intelligence. Our results also underscore the importance of using behavioral measures to index the quality of collaboration to augment the dominant focus on self-report measures of attitudes and processes in the social sciences, because collaborators may not always report better collaborations despite exhibiting increased synchrony and collective intelligence [2, 10]. Our study has limitations, which offer opportunities for future research. For example, our findings were observed in newly formed and non-recurring dyads in the laboratory. It remains to be seen whether our findings will generalize to teams that are ongoing or in which there is greater familiarity among members, as in the case of distributed teams in organizations. We encourage future research to test these findings in the field within organizational teams.

Overall, our findings enhance our understanding of the nonverbal cues that people rely on when collaborating with a distant partner via different communication media. As distributed collaboration increases as a form of work (e.g., virtual teams, crowdsourcing), this study suggests that collective intelligence will be a function of subtle cues and available modalities. Extrapolating from our results, one can argue that limited access to video may promote better communication and social interaction during collaborative problem solving, as there are fewer stimuli to distract collaborators. Consequently, we may achieve greater problem solving if new technologies offer fewer distractions and less visual stimuli.