In this paper, we describe the GroupMedia system, which uses wireless wearable computers to measure audio features, headmovement, and galvanic skin response (GSR) for dyads and groups of interacting people. These group sensor measurements are then used to build a real-time group interest index. The group interest index can be used to control group displays, annotate the group discussion for later retrieval, and even to modulate and guide the group discussion itself. We explore three different situations where this system has been introduced, and report experimental results.

We propose a wearable system that uses machine perception to quantify a user’s social context and propagate this information to others in the user’s social network. The social context is evaluated for the user’s instantaneous, face-toface interactions by evaluating proximity, collective speech features, head-movements, and galvanic skin responses. This information is then propagated to others within the user’s social or work group who have pre-approved permission to `patch in ’ to interesting conversations. We believe that propagation of social context will allow distant users to become better integrated into ongoing projects or discussions, and thus improve distance-separated social interaction, teamwork, and social networking.

Self-perception theory posits that people sometimes infer their own attributes by observing their freely chosen actions. We hypothesized that in addition, people sometimes infer their own attributes by observing the freely chosen actions of others with whom they feel a sense of merged identity—almost as if they had observed themselves performing the acts. Before observing an actor’s behavior, participants were led to feel a sense of merged identity with the actor through perspective-taking instructions (Study 1) or through feedback indicating that their brainwave patterns overlapped substantially with those of the actor (Studies 2-4). As predicted, observers incorporated attributes relevant to an actor’s behavior into their own self-concepts, but only when they were led to feel a sense of merged identity with the actor and only when the actor’s behavior seemed freely chosen. These changes in relevant self-perceptions led observers to change their own behaviors accordingly. Implications of these vicarious self-perception processes for conformity, perspective-taking, and the long-term development of the self-concept are discussed.