Effect of meal in triadic table talk: Equalization of speech and gesture between participants

Abstract

When eating a meal with others, conversation occurs generally in addition. However, the difference between the conversation with and without meal is not known. Three-party conversations with and without meal were compared in this study. It was found that the conversational behavior including utterance and geture was more balanced among the participants with the meal condition. It is suggested that the eating behavior restricts utterance naturally, which causes a participant who has fewer utterances can find the utterance timing easily. This finding will influence the future design of communication support systems.