When Coordination Signals Can Mislead: Conversational and Facial Markers of Transactive Functioning in Newly-Formed Virtual-Reality Teams

Abstract

Teams are increasingly studied as dynamic systems whose functioning depends on interaction processes and on emergent states such as cohesion and credibility, which post-task questionnaires capture only globally. Immersive virtual reality (VR) offers a controlled yet ecological setting in which to observe these processes from synchronized multimodal signals. We examine conversational and facial cues in twelve newly-formed engineering triads holding asymmetric, interdependent roles during a collaborative Building Information Modeling task. Two associations run opposite to their usual reading: balanced and overlapping speech goes with lower perceived credibility, task cohesion, and communication, while a facial marker of negative affect, the co-activation of AU15 and AU17, goes with higher social cohesion. We interpret both inversions through the task’s interdependent role structure and the coordination cost of the VR medium. These associations are descriptive, exploratory, and group-level, and are offered as hypotheses to be tested on larger samples.