Feeling in Sync: Reducing the Impact of Network Latency on Joint Rowing

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Virtual Reality
• Social Psychology

Background:

• Rhythmic synchronized activities enhance social connection through interpersonal entrainment.
• Maintaining synchrony in Social Virtual Reality (SVR) is challenging due to technical latency.
• Latency disrupts temporal coordination, diminishing social presence and interaction quality.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if synchrony-reinforcing feedback can mitigate latency effects in a dyadic VR rowing task.
• To assess the impact of different feedback types (visual, audio, audio-visual) on synchrony and social connection under varying latency conditions.

Main Methods:

• Participants engaged in a dyadic VR rowing task with systematically varied latency.
• Real-time visual, audio, or audio-visual feedback was provided, intensifying with synchronization.
• User coordination, social presence, task load, and subjective experiences were measured.

Main Results:

• Higher latency significantly disrupted coordination and the sense of togetherness.
• Audio-visual feedback effectively reduced latency's negative effects, improving interaction smoothness.
• Task load decreased with clear, multimodal feedback, while closeness remained robust, but togetherness deteriorated without timely cues.

Conclusions:

• Latency effects in SVR can be mitigated through perceptual design, particularly multimodal feedback.
• Providing audio-visual feedback is crucial for maintaining synchrony, reducing cognitive effort, and sustaining social interaction in latency-prone VR environments.