Self-organized complementary joint action: Behavioral dynamics of an interpersonal collision-avoidance task.

Abstract

Understanding stable patterns of interpersonal movement coordination is essential to understanding successful social interaction and activity (i.e., joint action). Previous research investigating such coordination has primarily focused on the synchronization of simple rhythmic movements (e.g., finger/forearm oscillations or pendulum swinging). Very few studies, however, have explored the stable patterns of coordination that emerge during task-directed complementary coordination tasks. Thus, the aim of the current study was to investigate and model the behavioral dynamics of a complementary collision-avoidance task. Participant pairs performed a repetitive targeting task in which they moved computer stimuli back and forth between sets of target locations without colliding into each other. The results revealed that pairs quickly converged onto a stable, asymmetric pattern of movement coordination that reflected differential control across participants, with 1 participant adopting a more straight-line movement trajectory between targets, and the other participant adopting a more elliptical trajectory between targets. This asymmetric movement pattern was also characterized by a phase lag between participants and was essential to task success. Coupling directionality analysis and dynamical modeling revealed that this dynamic regime was due to participant-specific differences in the coupling functions that defined the task-dynamics of participant pairs. Collectively, the current findings provide evidence that the dynamical coordination processes previously identified to underlie simple motor synchronization can also support more complex, goal-directed, joint action behavior, and can participate the spontaneous emergence of complementary joint action roles.

Anisotropy and Antagonism in the Coupling of Two Oscillators: Concepts and Applications for Between-Person Coordination

“…In line, similar coupling asymmetries have been demonstrated to prosper performance of complementary joint action like a collision-avoidance task (Richardson et al, 2015). Together, this may provide incentives for why “leader-follower” collaboration may be beneficial over perfectly balanced interpersonal interaction.…”

“…The latter also draws in an explicit role division: the stroke rower sets the pace for the other rower(s) to adhere to (de Poel et al, 2016). Recently, researchers have started to examine such interactional directionalities in between-person settings, mainly in context of leader-follower relations (e.g., Konvalinka et al, 2010; Vesper and Richardson, 2014), such as in the context of a “mirror game” (Noy et al, 2011; Słowiński et al, 2016), of which some studies specifically pertained to (or referred to) a dynamic model of anisotropic/asymmetric coupling (Varlet et al, 2012; Meerhoff and de Poel, 2014; Fine, 2015; Richardson et al, 2015). Importantly, between-person coordination typically entails bidirectional “leader-follower” interaction rather than strict unidirectional “master-slave” dependency (e.g., Meerhoff and de Poel, 2014).…”

“…It appears nothing is less true: implicit heuristic strategies seem to emerge that facilitate a “spontaneous” division in interactional roles of the dyad-members (Vesper et al, 2011; Richardson et al, 2015). In line, Meerhoff and de Poel (2014) found that even in the symmetric condition of their experiment, between-person coupling exhibited clear anisotropy for 70% of the examined pairs, indicating that there was almost always a “dominant interactor” within each pair.…”

Beyond Synchrony: Joint Action in a Complex Production Task Reveals Beneficial Effects of Decreased Interpersonal Synchrony

“…For example, dyads were asked to move dots on a screen together, so that one participant had to move a dot back and forth from the lower-left to the upper-right and the other one from the lower-right to the upper-left [17]. However, when the dots crashed into each other during these oscillatory movements, the trial was counted as a failure.…”

Playing ‘Pong’ Together: Emergent Coordination in a Doubles Interception Task

“…This similitude principle indicates that the dynamic-systems approach can account for interactions at different behavioral levels, independent of the nature of the connections between the system’s components (i.e., neural, mechanical or informational). Whereas most of the studies addressing the dynamics of joint actions concerned non-functional or stereotyped oscillatory limb or whole-body movements (such as swinging legs or rocking chairs together, Schmidt et al, 1990; Richardson et al, 2007), a few studies have shown that the interactive behavior of two individuals can also account for the observed coordinated patterns in more goal-directed tasks (Mottet et al, 2001; Richardson et al, 2015; Romero et al, 2015). …”