Quantitative study of human behavior in virtual interview sessions for the development of the Hyper hospital - a network oriented virtual reality based novel medical care system -

The 'Hyper Hospital' is a novel medical care system which will be constructed on an electronic information network. The human interface of the Hyper Hospital based on the modern virtual reality technology is expected to enhance patients' ability to heal by providing computer-supported on-line visual consultations. In order to investigate the effects and features of on-line visual consultations in the Hyper Hospital, we conducted an experiment to clarify the influence of electronic interviews on the talking behavior of interviewees in the context of simulated doctor-patient interactions. Results suggest that the interviewee became more verbose or talkative in the media-mediated interviews than in the live interviews. However, the interviewee's psychological tension was generally augmented in the media-mediated interviews, which was suggested by the delay of the initiation of conversations as compared to the conventional face-to-face interviews.