Improvement the sense of being listened to by using a video conferencing system to visualize focal words of user’s speaking in a thought bubble
Megumi Kawata, Yuta Nitada, Alexis Meneses, Yuichiro Yoshikawa, Hiroshi Ishiguro · 2023
In recent web conference systems, it has become possible to express the user’s gaze and attention through image processing. However, many users feel uncomfortable turning on the camera, and the sense of looked at and listened to worsens when the camera is turned off. Therefore, in this study, we investigated whether it is possible to improve the sense of gaze and listening by using thought bubbles even when the camera is off and there is no face information of the interlocutor. We have developed a video conferencing system that displays a pictogram image of a person with a thought bubble. The thought bubble displays the user’s face image. In addition, it is possible to extract the words that are the focal points of the user’s utterances and display them in a thought bubble. As a result, it was confirmed that the interlocutor’s sense of being looked at was enhanced by the presence of a thought bubble even when the interlocutor shows pictogram images of people. This result also suggests that thought bubbles can effectively show an interlocutor’s attention.