The Role of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication in a Two-Person, Cooperative Manipulation Task

Motivated by the differences between human and robot teams, we investigated the role of verbal communication between human teammates as they work together to move a large object to a series of target locations. Only one member of the group was told the target sequence by the experimenters, while th...

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Main Authors: Sarangi P. Parikh, Joel M. Esposito, Jeremy Searock
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2014-01-01
Series:Advances in Human-Computer Interaction
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/375105
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author Sarangi P. Parikh
Joel M. Esposito
Jeremy Searock
author_facet Sarangi P. Parikh
Joel M. Esposito
Jeremy Searock
author_sort Sarangi P. Parikh
collection DOAJ
description Motivated by the differences between human and robot teams, we investigated the role of verbal communication between human teammates as they work together to move a large object to a series of target locations. Only one member of the group was told the target sequence by the experimenters, while the second teammate had no target knowledge. The two experimental conditions we compared were haptic-verbal (teammates are allowed to talk) and haptic only (no talking allowed). The team’s trajectory was recorded and evaluated. In addition, participants completed a NASA TLX-style postexperimental survey which gauges workload along 6 different dimensions. In our initial experiment we found no significant difference in performance when verbal communication was added. In a follow-up experiment, using a different manipulation task, we did find that the addition of verbal communication significantly improved performance and reduced the perceived workload. In both experiments, for the haptic-only condition, we found that a remarkable number of groups independently improvised common haptic communication protocols (CHIPs). We speculate that such protocols can be substituted for verbal communication and that the performance difference between verbal and nonverbal communication may be related to how easy it is to distinguish the CHIPs from motions required for task completion.
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spelling doaj-art-50b79417972e4137ae9aed29c2ff720b2025-08-20T02:05:45ZengWileyAdvances in Human-Computer Interaction1687-58931687-59072014-01-01201410.1155/2014/375105375105The Role of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication in a Two-Person, Cooperative Manipulation TaskSarangi P. Parikh0Joel M. Esposito1Jeremy Searock2Systems Engineering Department, United States Naval Academy, 105 Maryland Avenue Annapolis, MD 21401, USASystems Engineering Department, United States Naval Academy, 105 Maryland Avenue Annapolis, MD 21401, USACarnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center, Pittsburgh, PA 15231, USAMotivated by the differences between human and robot teams, we investigated the role of verbal communication between human teammates as they work together to move a large object to a series of target locations. Only one member of the group was told the target sequence by the experimenters, while the second teammate had no target knowledge. The two experimental conditions we compared were haptic-verbal (teammates are allowed to talk) and haptic only (no talking allowed). The team’s trajectory was recorded and evaluated. In addition, participants completed a NASA TLX-style postexperimental survey which gauges workload along 6 different dimensions. In our initial experiment we found no significant difference in performance when verbal communication was added. In a follow-up experiment, using a different manipulation task, we did find that the addition of verbal communication significantly improved performance and reduced the perceived workload. In both experiments, for the haptic-only condition, we found that a remarkable number of groups independently improvised common haptic communication protocols (CHIPs). We speculate that such protocols can be substituted for verbal communication and that the performance difference between verbal and nonverbal communication may be related to how easy it is to distinguish the CHIPs from motions required for task completion.http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/375105
spellingShingle Sarangi P. Parikh
Joel M. Esposito
Jeremy Searock
The Role of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication in a Two-Person, Cooperative Manipulation Task
Advances in Human-Computer Interaction
title The Role of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication in a Two-Person, Cooperative Manipulation Task
title_full The Role of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication in a Two-Person, Cooperative Manipulation Task
title_fullStr The Role of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication in a Two-Person, Cooperative Manipulation Task
title_full_unstemmed The Role of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication in a Two-Person, Cooperative Manipulation Task
title_short The Role of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication in a Two-Person, Cooperative Manipulation Task
title_sort role of verbal and nonverbal communication in a two person cooperative manipulation task
url http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/375105
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