Do I Trust My Medical Professional on a Virtual Consultation? Biosensors, Human Computer Interaction and Trust-Building

Telehealth usage in 2021 was 38-times higher compared to the average pre-pandemic level [1]. Patient interaction with a medical professional mediated by a screen – whether it’s a computer screen, tablet screen or a mobile phone screen - has implications for trust-building [2], which, in turn, impinges on health outcomes [3]. In this paper, given that over 55% of communication is non-verbal [4], we focus on understanding how screen-mediated non-verbal cues – eye-movements, hand gestures and facial expressions - influence feelings of trust. This understanding is sought through the design of an experiment where we vary non-verbal cues in standardized images/videos and examine the effects on feeling of trust as reflected not only in self-reports by subjects but also in more objective data captured by biosensors.