A-T-ON BESOIN DE SE VOIR POUR COOPÉRER ? CONTRIBUTION THÉORIQUE ISSUE DE LA PSYCHO-LINGUISTIQUE

• Published in: Travail humain (Paris) 2000-06, Vol.63 (2), p.97-120
• Main Author: FOULON-MOLENDA, S
• Format: Article
• Language: fre
• Subjects: Ergonomie. Facteur humain; Psychologie du travail; Psychologie. Psychanalyse. Psychiatrie; Psychologie. Psychophysiologie; Sciences biologiques et medicales; Sciences biologiques fondamentales et appliquees. Psychologie; SYNTHÈSES REVIEWS
• ISSN: 0041-1868; 2104-3663

One of the major study themes where collaborative technology is concerned deals with the roles played by the various media used for supporting communication between geographically distributed partners working together (Olson et al., 1993). A number of studies on various types of dialogues in such fields as anthropology (Birdwhistell), communication ethnography (Hymnes, Gumprez), conversation analysis (Sacks, Schegloff), psycho-linguistics (Clark), and context analysis (Kendon), have stressed the importance of seeing for maintaining the fluidity of exchanges as well as promoting comprehension of what is being said. This has led various authors to insist on the necessity of including a visual channel centred on partners'faces in any software designed for remote real time work. However, all scientists in this field do not agree with this point of view, some finding it more useful to show the work itself rather than those performing the work. The aim of this survey was to collect exhaustive information on the role played by vision in natural and mediated communication supporting either one of these theses, thus enabling us to conclude once and for all on this question. In our review we stress that most of the previous work deals with situations of social exchange. How far can results obtained in this type of situation be generalised for application to situations where exchanges refer to work content ? Our reservations are corroborated by the fact that results observed in situations of social exchange, however contradictory within themselves, differ noticeably from the few observations carried out in situations involving group problem-solving. All results of observations for the latter type of nutation attribute a minor role to being able to see. Finally, these various findings have led us to question whether integrating a visual channel centred on the partners'faces is absolutely necessary in software developed for remote real time work. We begin our report by detailing the research carried out according to the different perspectives mentioned above, the results which were obtained and the contradictions which appeared. We carry on by developing a discussion in which we have tried to throw light on the role played by seeing in intellectual communication (as opposed to social communication). From these findings, we draw a conclusion as to the necessity of a visual channel enabling partners to see each other in situations of remote real time work. Un des thèmes