Social Mirrors as Social Signals: Transforming Audio into Graphics

A social mirror is a specific type of visualization for group interaction. Three examples of social mirrors emphasize different motivations for visualizing vocal conversation: the power of visualization to influence conversation in real time, the addition of anonymous input into group visualization, and idea formation over time. Social visualizations are visualizations about people, for people. A social mirror is a type of social visualization with three particular qualities. First, it\´s a third-person visualization in which people can see information about themselves within information about other people. In a sense, we can perceive "us and them." Every participant sees the same visualization. Second, subtle perceivable changes of any participant appear in the visualization as they occur in near real time. This can include capturing and visualizing subtle social behaviors such as laughing and coughing. Because of this near real-time feature, people can quickly alter their behavior-and hence the visualization-so that others perceive them as they\´d like to be perceived in this public mirror. Third, social mirrors allow for exploring group patterns and behavior through real-time experimentation, replay, annotation, and reconfiguration.