Sensory Perception & Interaction Research Group

The increased prevalence of online collaborative work, through necessity or preference, is accompanied by measurable drops in sat- isfaction, creativity and energy, often termed “zoom fatigue.” As loss of physical co-presence and associated nonverbal communication are identified as contributors, we introduce Synchrobots – robots designed to channel human biophysiology for group connected- ness. We propose an Interactivity demo wherein two participants perform an online problem-solving task while wearing physiolog- ical sensors and holding a Synchrobot as it physically renders a translation of their partner’s heartrate. The setup involves two sta- tions, each with a laptop running Zoom, a set of wearable sensors recording heart rate, respiratory rate, and electrodermal activity, and a Synchrobot. After the problem-solving task, we will invite participants to reflect on how connected they felt with each other as well as their satisfaction with the collaboration quality. Partici- pants may consent to release this data for later inclusion as part of a study.