Interactive Human Communication: Some Lessons Learned from Laboratory Experiments.
Abstract
The following are among the principal findings of 11 experiments on interactive communication: (1) Modes of communication having a voice channel are faster, but much wordier, than those not having a voice channel. (2) Face- to-face communication is not appreciably faster, and is generally wordier, than communication by voice alone. (3) Typing skill per se does not appear to be a significant factor in the kind of communication examined in these studies. (4) Giving communicators the freedom to interrupt has no effect on problem solution time or on the number of words used. When communicators are free to interrupt, they use more messages and messages are shorter; when they cannot interrupt, they use fewer and longer messages. (5) Communicators are much more likely to take control of a communication system if the system has a voice channel. (6) In many realistic tasks, communicators spend as much as 50% of their time in activities other than communicating. (7) College students and high school students do about the same kinds of things in communication tasks, and in the same proportions; however, college students do everything faster. (8) Natural human communication is extremely unruly and often seems to follow few grammatical, syntactic, or semantic rules. (9) Oral communication is highly redundant and most communication can be carried on effectively with a small, carefully selected set of words.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 16, 1976
- Accession Number
- ADA031637
Entities
People
- Alphonse Chapanis
Organizations
- Johns Hopkins University