Technology Constraints on Nonverbal Aspects of Communication
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Han, Michelle
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Abstract
Communication involves more than just verbal speech; there are nonverbal aspects of communication such as body position, eye contact, hand gestures, and the like. Specifically in an interview setting, both the person conducting the interview and the person answering questions display their own methods of communication both verbal and nonverbal. When technology is introduced into the situation, changes in interviewer-interviewee interaction influence the interview process, the outcome, and even the aftermath. Even just the presence of a technological device, as opposed to pen and paper or the absence of a note-taking aid, could potentially alter the subjective interview experience. Understanding the tradeoff between these objective and subjective variables would be very useful. Research indicates that electronic documentation can lead to an increase in documentation and accuracy of recording. Research on the constraints of technology on nonverbal aspects of communication has been done in the Georgia Tech Sonification Lab. An investigation of a patient’s perception of a doctor after a medical interview as a consequence of different note-taking methods was conducted. In order to explore the critical interaction between doctors and patients, different note-taking methods were employed. The results were that the patients perceived the desktop computer to be the least favorable technology used by the doctor, which is applicable to society since computers are becoming more common in medical interviews (Olsheski & Walker, 2011). However, previous work on this topic did not take into account the factor of eye gaze or personality which is what the present study considered. Also, this study explored an interview involving a roommate situation, which could be applied to other interview-type situations or interactions.
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2013-05-08
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Undergraduate Thesis