title: Prior Knowledge Facilitates Mutual Gaze Convergence and Head Nodding Synchrony in Face-to-face Communication.
abstract: As prior knowledge is claimed to be an essential key to achieve effective education, we are interested in exploring whether prior knowledge enhances communication effectiveness. To demonstrate the effects of prior knowledge, mutual gaze convergence and head nodding synchrony are observed as indicators of communication effectiveness. We conducted an experiment on lecture task between lecturer and student under 2 conditions: prior knowledge and non-prior knowledge. The students in prior knowledge condition were provided the basic information about the lecture content and were assessed their understanding by the experimenter before starting the lecture while the students in non-prior knowledge had none. The result shows that the interaction in prior knowledge condition establishes significantly higher mutual gaze convergence (t(15.03) = 6.72, p < 0.0001; α = 0.05, n = 20) and head nodding synchrony (t(16.67) = 1.83, p = 0.04; α = 0.05, n = 19) compared to non-prior knowledge condition. This study reveals that prior knowledge facilitates mutual gaze convergence and head nodding synchrony. Furthermore, the interaction with and without prior knowledge can be evaluated by measuring or observing mutual gaze convergence and head nodding synchrony.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Thepsoonthorn
authors.affiliation: Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yokozuka
authors.affiliation: Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Miura
authors.affiliation: Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ogawa
authors.affiliation: Department of Computational Intelligence and Systems Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Japan.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Miyake
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007697:Kinesics; D019359:Knowledge; D008297:Male