Zoom calls get louder when the display gets blurry, study finds

If you've ever found yourself starting to shout during a video call on Zoom, it might be because your display is blurry, a new study suggests. Researchers asked pairs of individuals to have unscripted conversations over a video call, while degrading the visual quality over several steps. Participants spoke louder and changed their gestures to compensate for poor visual quality, the experts found, although it's uncertain why. It may be that we associate not being able to see someone clearly with them being far way, so we subconsciously try to compensate by shouting. Humans use hand gestures when it's hard for others to hear us, but we also speak louder when it's hard for people to see us, report experts at Radboud University, the Netherlands It's already known that humans use hand gestures in conversation to compensate for when it's hard for people to hear us.