Everyone knows a face-to-face conversation conveys more information than a phone call because we get to see body language. But this common sense experience goes deeper than we thought and bodes well for those technologies that allow us to easily and affordably converse via video-conference.
Jeremy Skipper at Cornell University has completed studies that show when a person sees another gesture (face and/or hands) while communicating a larger number of brain regions are activated. And each of these regions produce speech or symbolic oriented messages in the brain. Literally you can convey more information with fewer words, when the words are accompanied with gestures, because more of the listener's brain is engaged.
One of his studies examined full audio-visual communication versus audio only and visual only communication. The full audio-visual situations stimulated brain regions in the listeners associated with phonetic structure, syllable production, and movement - all of which promote greater comprehension and retention. In other studies, he has shown that while audio-visual stimuli activate these other regions of the brain, they actually fill-in information for Broca's area, a well known speech production region. Broca's area has an easier time understanding the message as a result.
I for one, am looking forward to technology solutions that allow for a greater number of affordable video conference capabilities on demand. A few solutions exist now, but they are not ubiquitous and the best are very costly.
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