Influence of dining-progress synchrony in time-shifted tele-dining

Abstract

A system “KIZUNA” was recently proposed enabling time-shifted people to enjoy a meal together in a virtual environment involving the transmission of recorded video messages. The system achieves synchrony through adapting the displayed video's playback speed to the difference in the dining progress between local and remote person. A subjective system evaluation revealed that the adaptation method enhanced participants’ communication behavior and perceived presence of remote person. In this paper, we further explored the influence of synchrony on diners’ behavior through analyzing the recorded experiment dining sessions. The results revealed that the participants engaged more in communication, while their eating and drinking behaviors were almost not changed.