Effects of Workspace Awareness and Territoriality in Environments with Large, Shared Displays

Abstract

Synchronous cooperative work of multiple collaborators in large, high-resolution display systems comprises such psychological phenomena like workspace awareness and human territoriality. The phenomena and interplay between them can cause a significant impact on human-human and human-environment interaction. In a non-digital environment humans rely on their own physical abilities, utilities, and social protocols to control those phenomena (e.g. close eyes, or use earplugs to reduce workspace awareness; rotate oneself towards collaborators to increase workspace awareness). Digital environments, on the other hand, provide us with a possibility to ease, automate, and unify control processes, thus taking off that burden from users. Yet, we have to understand first, what effects workspace awareness and territoriality have within a collaborative environment. The aim of this doctoral thesis is to investigate effects of workspace awareness and territoriality on users and interaction processes in mixed-focus scenarios of various collaborative settings.