Heart monitoring during remote collaborative communication under noisy, reverberant, and delayed communication transmission conditions

This study, which is part of a larger study, was designed to monitor heart rate during remote collaborative communication. Ninety (45 men and 45 women) participants were divided into 30 teams with 3 members in each team. Each team built different LEGO models under three communication transmission delay conditions in the following order: No delay, 750 ms delay and 5000 ms delay. One individual served as the LEGO builder, who did not have the instruction manual. The remaining two team members provided instructions for building the models. Participants were in separate rooms and communicated via earphones. Background white noise (50 dB SPL) was introduced in the ear canals and reverberation was applied to the transmitted communication. Participants were fitted with Empatica E4 wristbands on their wrists. ANOVA was performed on the averaged heart rate and the RMSDD (the root mean square of successive differences between normal heartbeats). The results revealed lower heart rates and increased heart rate variability in the 750 and 5000 ms delay conditions compared to the no delay condition. Detailed results will be discussed during the presentation. Acknowledgement: Graduate students Sydney Osbarn and Melissa Reyes assisted in data collection. Sydney Osbarn also assisted in pre-processing the data.