A Metaverse-Based Virtual Office System with Overhearing Function for Facilitating Smooth Joining in Ongoing Conversations

In remote work environments, communication deficits pose significant challenges. To address this issue, metaverse-based virtual office systems have been developed. However, while these virtual offices provide spaces for conversation, they do not fully resolve communication deficits. Therefore, we focused on the barrier encountered when joining in ongoing conversations and developed a virtual office system with an overhearing function. Additionally, to address the anxiety induced by being overheard conversations, we implemented a feature to distort conversational audio. Evaluation experiments confirmed that unprocessed raw audio overhearing effectively facilitates smooth joining in conversations. On the other hand, overhearing with distorted audio, while mitigating users' anxiety about being overheard to some extent, resulted in a compromise in the smoothness of conversation joining as a trade-off. Consequently, the need for additional system enhancements aimed at further reducing user resistance while facilitating smoother joining in conversations through overhearing became apparent.