Perceived Conversation Quality in Spontaneous Interactions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a holistic approach to measuring perceived conversation quality in spontaneous interactions, developing new instruments and analyzing behavioral predictors from real-world data.

Contribution

It proposes a comprehensive conceptualization of conversation quality, creates two novel measurement instruments, and identifies behavioral features predictive of perceived quality.

Findings

Smaller group sizes correlate with higher perceived quality.

Equitable speaking turns and fewer interruptions predict better conversation quality.

Synchronous bodily coordination is associated with higher perceived conversation quality.

Abstract

The quality of daily spontaneous conversations is of importance towards both our well-being as well as the development of interactive social agents. Prior research directly studying the quality of social conversations has operationalized it in narrow terms, associating greater quality to less small talk. Other works taking a broader perspective of interaction experience have indirectly studied quality through one of the several overlapping constructs such as rapport or engagement, in isolation. In this work we bridge this gap by proposing a holistic conceptualization of conversation quality, building upon the collaborative attributes of cooperative conversation floors. Taking a multilevel perspective of conversation, we develop and validate two instruments for perceived conversation quality (PCQ) at the individual and group levels. Specifically, we motivate capturing external raters' gestalt impressions of participant experiences from thin slices of behavior, and collect annotations of PCQ on the publicly available MatchNMingle dataset of in-the-wild mingling conversations. Finally, we present an analysis of behavioral features that are predictive of PCQ. We find that for the conversations in MatchNMingle, raters tend to associate smaller group sizes, equitable speaking turns with fewer interruptions, and time taken for synchronous bodily coordination with higher PCQ.