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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Virtual Real.
Sec. Virtual Reality and Human Behaviour
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frvir.2024.1463189
This article is part of the Research Topic A Metaverse for the Good: Design, Application and Understanding View all 8 articles

An Experimental Comparison of Participants' Experience in Face-to-Face, Video, and Virtual Reality Meetings

Provisionally accepted
Sophie Van Gent Sophie Van Gent 1*Anja Langefeld Anja Langefeld 1Niels Held Niels Held 1Anita Cremers Anita Cremers 2Gjalt Loots Gjalt Loots 1Simon N.B. Gunkel Simon N.B. Gunkel 1
  • 1 Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • 2 HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands, Netherlands

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The increasing prevalence of remote working and the challenges it presents underscores the need for alternative technologies that can provide a more healthy, natural and social remote meeting experience. However, there is a limited understanding of how such technologies compare to other modalities, especially face-to-face communication. This study investigates the impact of three meeting modalities -face-to-face, videoconferencing, and virtual reality (VR) -on participants' experience of social presence, well-being, and task engagement during a meeting involving a negotiation task. Despite the hypothesis that these experiences would significantly differ across modalities, no such differences were found. We suspect that characteristics of the meeting participants and the negotiation task, the meeting duration, as well as the measurements used have moderated the effect of meeting modality on experience. The VR modality was however perceived as more enjoyable, suggesting that immersive technologies like VR hold potential for enhancing the remote meeting experience. The results also underscore that there is no one-size fits all solution when it comes to choosing the best meeting modality. The study stresses the need for ongoing research to optimize the remote meeting experience in the context of different meeting objectives and practical considerations.

    Keywords: Extended Reality, Meetings, Social presence, Well-being, Meta Horizons

    Received: 11 Jul 2024; Accepted: 03 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Van Gent, Langefeld, Held, Cremers, Loots and Gunkel. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Sophie Van Gent, Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.