It makes sense that the more information people share, the better they communicate. To evaluate the effect of knowledge overlap on the effectiveness of communication, participants played a communication game where the “director” identified objects to the “addressee”. Pairs either shared information about most objects' names (high overlap), or about the minority of objects' names (low overlap). We found that high-overlap directors tended to use more names than low overlap directors. High overlap directors also used more names with objects whose (...) names only they knew, thereby confusing their addressees more often than low-overlap directors. We conclude that while sharing more knowledge can be beneficial to communication overall, it can cause communication to be locally ineffective. Sharing more information reduces communication effectiveness precisely when there is an opportunity to inform—when people communicate information only they themselves know. (shrink)

New communication technologies enable an array of new working and learning scenarios in which knowledge is being communicated. This article deals with the question to what extent these technologies can impede or facilitate knowledge communication. First, the various computer-based communication technologies will be classified. Second, effects of the medium on knowledge communication will be discussed based on results of studies of the current special priority program "Net-based Knowledge Communication in Groups". Third and last, computer-based possibilities to facilitate computer-mediated knowledge communication (...) will be review. (shrink)