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Previous work has shown that supporting trust via computer-mediated communication can be a challenge, especially among strangers. In this paper, we report on an experiment comparing two group-to-group videoconferencing environments and face-to-face communication in their ability to support trust and mutual cooperation in a social dilemma task. There are pronounced differences in participant behaviour between the two video-conferencing designs, indicating higher mutual trust in one of the video-conferencing conditions. The decisive factor seems to be a discrepancy in the type of group identity that develops during the game. Moreover, our results suggest that a combination of personal displays and a unique videostream of each participant present in the better videoconferencing condition contributed to this result.

Abstract. In this paper, we present GColl, a group-to-group videoconferencing environment concept, which aims to provide a natural communication channel even for ad-hoc groups or other teams that require frequent changes in the number of participants or videoconferencing locations. GColl supports mutual gaze as well as partial gaze awareness for all participants while still retaining very modest technical requirements: a camera and an echo-canceling microphone at each site; and a notebook with two USB cameras for each user. A working prototype is available for download.

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Abstract-Videoconferencing has emerged as a popular method of remote communication. The design of a videoconferencing environment strongly influences the communication efficiency and user satisfaction. Various studies on perceived effects of videoconferencing environments and their parameters have been done, however, they primarily focused on dyadic conversation. This paper describes an exploratory study on the effects on remote groups communication. Beginning with the standard environment, a videoconferencing design has been developed iteratively according to information obtained from the experimental group. Two new videoconferencing environment designs are introduced to suit the group conversation needs better and bring the group videoconference closer to face-to-face communication.