Differing Dynamics of Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Coordination: Two-finger and Four-Finger Tapping Experiments

Abstract

Finger-tapping experiments were conducted to examine whether the dynamics of intrapersonal and interpersonal coordination systems can be described equally by the Haken—Kelso—Bunz model, which describes inter-limb coordination dynamics. This article reports the results of finger-tapping experiments conducted in both systems. Two within-subject factors were investigated: the phase mode and the number of fingers. In the intrapersonal experiment (Experiment 1), the participants were asked to tap, paced by a gradually hastening auditory metronome, looking at their fingers moving, using the index finger in the two finger condition, or the index and middle finger in the four-finger condition. In the interpersonal experiment (Experiment 2), pairs of participants performed the task while each participant used the outside hand, tapping with the index finger in the two finger condition, or the index and middle finger in the four-finger condition. Some results did not agree with the HKB model predictions. First, from Experiment 1, no significant difference was observed in the movement stability between the in-phase and anti-phase modes in the two finger condition. Second, from Experiment 2, no significant difference was found in the movement stability between the in-phase and anti-phase mode in the four-finger condition. From these findings, different coordination dynamics were inferred between intrapersonal and interpersonal coordination systems against prediction from the previous studies. Results were discussed according to differences between intrapersonal and interpersonal coordination systems in the availability of perceptual information and the complexity in the interaction between limbs derived from a nested structure.

Interpersonal Coordination: Methods, Achievements, and Challenges

“…More recently, the automated digital plotting technique has been utilized for the study of finer forms of interpersonal coordination. Kodama et al (2015) measured the intrapersonal and interpersonal coordination of participants’ fingers during a tapping task to explore the dynamic patterns in human movement described by Kelso (1984) . Individual participants and dyads participated in intra- and interpersonal studies, respectively.…”

Detection of bimanual gestures everywhere: Why it matters, what we need and what is missing

“…Furthermore, they argue that the central nervous system regulates bilateral coordination at different levels, as hypothesised by Swinnen and Wenderoth [8]. The importance of both intrinsic and extrinsic coordinates seems to be confirmed by recent studies in interpersonal coordination [9]. It is suggested that coordinated motion is informed by a full perception-action coupling, including visual and haptic sensorimotor loops, which propagates to the neuromuscular system.…”

“…The Mahalanobis distance is a probabilistic distance measure used to compute the similarity between sets of random variables whose means and variances are known [37]. The Mahalanobis distance d between a generic elementf k ∈F f defined by (9) and a generic element f k ∈ F w,f defined in accordance with (7), is computed as:…”

“…R 3 ) we must consider models which can be adapted over time and which follow the evolution of the musculoskeletal system, at least implicitly, thus requiring the use of forms of machine learning techniques. Beside the models aimed at representing bimanual gestures assuming a motor control framework, much work has been carried out in the past few years to devise building blocks for mental action representation [1][2][4] [8][5] [9]. Assuming a goal-directed cognitive perspective, it has been shown how movements can be represented as a serial and functional combination of goal-related body postures, or goal postures (i.e., key frames), as well as their transitional states.…”

The topology of interpersonal neural network in weak social ties

“…First, we calculated the relative phase (RP) of tapping using a circular measure to confirm whether the tapping coordination was antiphase (RP=180°). (Kodama et al, 2015;Kurihara et al, 2022;Novembre et al, 2017). The RP was defined using tapping times:…”