The Relationship of Collaboration Technologies and Cognition and Affect

Collaboration technologies (CT) are integral for today’s workplaces and the use of CT impacts human brain and behavior. The consequences on cognition and affect of CT users have been empirically investigated since the 1970s. However, the research landscape is scattered and a comprehensive overview is missing. Consequently, we systematically analyze research about the relationship of CT and cognitive and affective user states and processes through an advanced systematic literature review based on the conceptual foundation of the time-space matrix, the stimulus-organism-response paradigm, and the workplace outcomes framework. Our results show an increase in remote CT, alongside a focus on individual analysis and affective constructs, while group level studies concentrate relatively stronger on collocated scenarios. We contribute with avenues for future research like the underrepresentation of group level analysis, a need for unified conceptualization and understanding of cognitive and affective constructs in theory and for deriving design knowledge to create advanced, cognition- and affect-sensitive CT features