Behaviors, Perceptions, Responsiveness, and Presence: The Dyadic Model of Mediated Communication

Presence is widely recognized as a central concept for the study of mediated communication, however, its role in the maintenance of geographically distal close relationships remains unclear. Drawing upon research from HCI, communication, cognitive science, and psychology, we present the Dyadic Model of Mediated Communication to provide a better understanding of presence in mediated communication. We argue that each partner´s perception of responsiveness is crucial for the creation and experience of presence. In this paper, we focus on eye coordination within video-mediated communication as a major determinant of responsiveness and presence in mediated communication. We discuss the model´s potential application to future study of human factors of HCI and to current maintenance theory.