  The limited nonverbal cues and spatially distributed nature of remote
communication make it challenging for unacquainted members to be expressive
during social interactions over video conferencing. Though it enables seeing
others' facial expressions, the visual feedback can instead lead to unexpected
self-focus, resulting in users missing cues for others to engage in the
conversation equally. To support expressive communication and equal
participation among unacquainted counterparts, we propose SealMates, a
behavior-driven avatar in which the avatar infers the engagement level of the
group based on collective gaze and speech patterns and then moves across
interlocutors' windows in the video conferencing. By conducting a controlled
experiment with 15 groups of triads, we found the avatar's movement encouraged
people to experience more self-disclosure and made them perceive everyone was
equally engaged in the conversation than when there was no behavior-driven
avatar. We discuss how a behavior-driven avatar influences distributed members'
perceptions and the implications of avatar-mediated communication for future
platforms.
