Zoom appears to be an impoverished social communication system relative to in-person face-to-face conversations

Amazing stuff!

Still Zoom e.g. over long distances is better than no visual communication at all. My wife is currently in China so a Zoom conversation with her is much better than e.g. any conventional phone conversation.

"... neuroscientist ... used sophisticated imaging tools to track in real time the brain activity of two people engaged in conversation, she discovered an intricate choreography of neural activity in areas of the brain that govern social interactions. When she performed similar experiments with two people talking on Zoom ... she observed a much different neurological landscape.

Neural signaling during online exchanges was substantially suppressed compared to activity observed in those having face-to-face conversations, researchers found. ...
“Zoom appears to be an impoverished social communication system relative to in-person conditions.” ...

They found that the strength of neural signaling was dramatically reduced on Zoom relative to “in-person” conversations. Increased activity among those participating in face-to-face conversations were associated with increased gaze time and increased pupil diameters, suggestive of increased arousal in the two brains. Increased EEG activity during in-person interactions was characteristic of enhanced face processing ability, researchers said. ..."

From the abstract:

"It has long been understood that the ventral visual stream of the human brain processes features of simulated human faces. Recently, specificity for real and interactive faces has been reported in lateral and dorsal visual streams raising new questions regarding neural coding of interactive faces and lateral and dorsal face processing mechanisms. We compare neural activity during two live interactive face-to-face conditions where facial features and tasks remain constant while the social context (in-person or on-line conditions) are varied. Current models of face processing do not predict differences in these two conditions as features do not vary. However, behavioral eye-tracking measures showed longer visual dwell times on the real face and also increased arousal as indicated by pupil diameters for the real face condition. Consistent with the behavioral findings, signal increases with functional near infrared spectroscopy, fNIRS, were observed in dorsal-parietal regions for the real faces and increased cross-brain synchrony was also found within these dorsal-parietal regions for the real in-person face condition. Simultaneously acquired electroencephalography, EEG, also showed increased theta power in real conditions. These neural and behavioral differences highlight the importance of natural, in-person, paradigms and social context for understanding live and interactive face processing in human."

Zooming in on our brains on Zoom | YaleNews A new study finds that neural signaling during online exchanges is substantially suppressed compared to activity in face-to-face conversations.

Separable Processes for Live “In-Person” and Live “Zoom-like” Faces (open access)