  Virtual and augmented reality communication platforms are seen as promising
modalities for next-generation remote face-to-face interactions. Our study
attempts to explore non-verbal communication features in relation to their
conversation context for virtual and augmented reality mediated communication
settings. We perform a series of user experiments, triggering nine conversation
tasks in 4 settings, each containing corresponding non-verbal communication
features. Our results indicate that conversation types which involve less
emotional engagement are more likely to be acceptable in virtual reality and
augmented reality settings with low-fidelity avatar representation, compared to
scenarios that involve high emotional engagement or intellectually difficult
discussions. We further systematically analyze and rank the impact of
low-fidelity representation of micro-expressions, body scale, head pose, and
hand gesture in affecting the user experience in one-on-one conversations, and
validate that preserving micro-expression cues plays the most effective role in
improving bi-directional conversations in future virtual and augmented reality
settings.
