Is human brain failing to process information on Zoom calls? Study says 'yes'

With online video calls through platforms like Zoom and Teams becoming a common practice in our day-to-day work life, it is now being seen as the most feasible and easy way to communicate.

However, a recent study says that such video calls may not actually be the 'smoothest' way to hold conversations.

The new research has revealed that the human brain finds it challenging to process conversations that take place through video calls in comparison to face-to-face conversations.

The findings made in a study carried out at Yale University emphasiseshow important it is to hold in-person communication and this is how humans naturally interact with others.

"The social systems of the human brain are more active during real live in-person encounters than on Zoom," stated neuroscientist Joy Hirsch, who is the senior author of the published paper.

"Online representations of faces, at least with current technology, do not have the same 'privileged access' to social neural circuitry in the brain that is typical of the real thing,” he added.

As per Hirsch and her colleagues, neuroimaging was used by most of the studies previously carried out to record brain activity amid social interactions, which involved individual people.

Study recorded people's eye and brain activity during conversation

In this study, the researchers carried out a comparison between how people interacted with one another in real-time. The participants included 28 healthy adults who had no vision impairments and belonged to different ages, genders, and ethnicities.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), eye trackers and electroencephalography (EEG) were used by Hirsch and the team to carefully record the eye and brain activity of people when they were talking to each other.

The results of pairs who participated in live face-to-face conversations were compared to those who used Zoom to hold video chats. No changes were made in the conversation partners and the same task was completed by each pair during the conversations.

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In comparison to interactions which took place on Zoom, face-to-face discussions saw an increase in signal in the brain's critical area, which is called the dorsal-parietal region.

"Pupil diameters were generally larger for in-person faces than for virtual faces suggesting increased arousal for in-person faces. In addition, the magnitudes of the pupil responses were reciprocated by partners,” stated the team.

"Overall, the dynamic and natural social interactions that occur spontaneously during in-person interactions appear to be less apparent or absent during Zoom encounters. This is a really robust effect,” explained Hirsch.

(With inputs from agencies)

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