Discussion is critical to build consensus in our social activities. There are social demands to conduct smooth and effective discussions. We look at how experienced facilitators control the discussions effectively and smoothly, to uncover the factors which caused the facilitating behaviors of the good facilitator by using measured nonverbal and paralinguistic data [1]. We conducted experiments to obtain the nonverbal and paralinguistic behavior of the participants in face-to-face discussion. Linear discriminant analysis was then applied to the data. The result suggests that we could achieve 78.4% accuracy in classifying four types of the facilitating behaviors by using seven independent variables. As a result of discriminant analysis, we have found that the facilitator paid attention to not only the context of the discussion but also the individual behavior, and the participants conveyed their requests to the facilitator by using nonverbal behavior.
Reference
[1] Yoshimasa Ohmoto, Yasushi Toda, Kazuhiro Ueda, and Toyoaki Nishida: Analyses of the facilitating behavior by using discussion conditions, participant stances and nonverbal behavior, Social Intelligence Design 2010, 2010.