Interpersonal Coordination

This study explored the effects of musical improvisation between dyads of same-sex strangers on subsequent behavioural alignment. Participants–all non-musicians–conversed before and after either improvising music together (Musical Improvisation—MI—group) or doing a motoric non-rhythmic cooperative task (building a tower together using wooden blocks; the Hands-Busy—HB—group). Conversations were free, but initially guided by an adaptation of the Fast Friends Questionnaire for inducing talk among students who are strangers and meeting for the first time. Throughout, participants’ motion was recorded with an optical motion-capture system (Mocap) and analysed in terms of speed cross-correlations. Their conversations were also recorded on separate channels using headset microphones and were analysed in terms of the periodicity displayed by rhythmic peaks in the turn transitions across question and answer pairs (Q+A pairs). Compared with their first conversations, the MI group in the secon...

To examine whether the Haken-Kelso-Bunz model for rhythmic interlimb coordination applies to walking side-by-side on a treadmill, we invited six pairs of participants to coordinate their stepping movements at seven prescribed relative phases (between 0 • and 180 • ) to scan the attractor layout governing their coordination. Two auditory metronomes, one for each participant, specified the required relative phase. For each trial participants were instructed to synchronize their left heel strikes with the beeps of the metronome (2 min) and to continue walking after the metronome stopped (1 min). If the Haken-Kelso-Bunz model applies to interpersonal coordination during treadmill walking, then (1) the variability of in-and antiphase should be minimal, (2) intermediate relative phases should be attracted to either in-or antiphase, and (3) the absolute shift away from the required relative phase should be greatest for a required relative phase of 90 • . Only the third of these hypotheses was confirmed, indicating that the dynamical model for rhythmic interlimb coordination does not readily apply, at least not generically or robustly, to interpersonal coordination during walking side-by-side on a treadmill.

In this paper, we show that early interaction can be seen as comprising of strands of coordinated activity on multiple levels and timescales. In tracing the development of such multilayered organization from an embodied and situated perspective, we underscore the role of the reliable presence of the structured environment, an enacted niche, supporting the segregation and integration of participatory interaction strands. This perspective allows us to study the development of social coordination not only in terms of development of individual skills but, crucially, as a change of participatory emergent patterns, a transformation in engagement. We illustrate this approach with some results from the collaborative research project on Early Semantic Development (EASE). Using qualitative microanalysis combined with quantitative dynamical time series analyses, we were able to demonstrate several layers of such organization: from local forms of coordination, such as basic informational coupling within a modality, and the emergence of specific social affordances, to more global co-action structures such as affect imbued 'action arcs' -dynamic action contours with a beginning, build-up, climax and resolution, co-enacted by participants. Pointing to future work, we underscore the potential of these global structures to contribute to the emergence of more complex interactions, such as composite activities within 'pragmatic frames', narratives, or language.

The human perceptual-motor system is tightly coupled to the physical and informational dynamics of a task environment. These dynamics operate to constrain the high-dimensional order of the human movement system into low-dimensional, task-specific synergies-functional groupings of structural elements that are temporarily constrained to act as a single coordinated unit. The aim of the current study was to determine whether synergistic processes operate when coacting individuals coordinate to perform a discrete joint-action task. Pairs of participants sat next to each other and each used 1 arm to complete a pointer-to-target task. Using the uncontrolled manifold (UCM) analysis for the first time in a discrete joint action, the structure of joint-angle variance was examined to determine whether there was synergistic organization of the degrees of freedom employed at the interpersonal or intrapersonal levels. The results revealed that the motor actions performed by coactors were synergis...

Cooperative conversation has been shown to foster interpersonal postural coordination. The authors investigated whether such coordination is mediated by the influence of articulation on postural sway. In Experiment 1, talkers produced words in synchrony or in alternation, as the authors varied speaking rate and word similarity. Greater shared postural activity was found for the faster speaking rate. In Experiment 2, the authors demonstrated that shared postural activity also increases when individuals speak the same words or speak words that have similar stress patterns. However, this increase in shared postural activity is present only when participants' data are compared with those of their partner, who was present during the task, but not when compared with the data of a member of a different pair speaking the same word sequences as those of the original partner. The authors' findings suggest that interpersonal postural coordination observed during conversation is mediated by convergent speaking patterns.

In rowing, perfect synchronisation is important for optimal performance of a crew. Remarkably, a recent study on ergometers demonstrated that antiphase crew coordination might be mechanically more efficient by reducing the power lost to within-cycle velocity fluctuations of the boat. However, coupled oscillator dynamics predict the stability of the coordination to decrease with increasing stroke rate, which in case of antiphase may eventually yield breakdowns to in-phase. Therefore, this study examined the effects of increasing stroke rate on in-and antiphase crew coordination in rowing dyads. Eleven experienced dyads rowed on two mechanically coupled ergometers on slides, which allowed the ergometer system to move back and forth as one 'boat'. The dyads performed a ramp trial in both inand antiphase pattern, in which stroke rates gradually increased from 30 strokes per minute (spm) to as fast as possible in steps of 2 spm. Kinematics of rowers, handles and ergometers were captured. Two dyads showed a breakdown of antiphase into in-phase coordination at the first stroke rate of the ramp trial. The other nine dyads reached between 34-42 spm in antiphase but achieved higher rates in in-phase. As expected, the coordinative accuracy in antiphase was worse than in in-phase crew coordination, while, somewhat surprisingly, the coordinative variability did not differ between the patterns. Whereas crew coordination did not substantially deteriorate with increasing stroke rate, stroke rate did affect the velocity fluctuations of the ergometers: fluctuations were clearly larger in the inphase pattern than in the antiphase pattern, and this difference significantly increased with stroke rate. Together, these results suggest that although antiphase rowing is less stable (i.e., less resistant to perturbation), potential on-water benefits of antiphase over in-phase rowing may actually increase with stroke rate.

Body synchronization between interacting people involves coordinative movements in time, space and form. The introduction of newer technologies for automated video analysis and motion tracking has considerably improved the accurate measurement of coordination, particularly in temporal and spatial terms. However, the form of interpersonal coordination has been less explored. In the present study we address this gap by exploring the effect of trust on temporal and morphological patterns of interpersonal coordination. We adapted an optical motion-capture system to record spontaneous body movements in pairs of individuals engaged in natural conversations. We conducted two experiments in which we manipulated trust through a breach of expectancy (Study 1: 10 trustful and 10 distrustful participants) and friendship (Study 2: 20 dyads of friends and 20 dyads of strangers). In Study 1, results show the participants' strong, early mirror-like coordination in response to the confederates' breach of trust. In Study 2, imitative coordination tended to be more pronounced in pairs of friends than in pairs of non-friends. Overall, our results show not only that listeners move in reaction to speakers, but also that speakers react to listeners with a chain of dynamic coordination patterns affected by the immediate disposition of, and long-term relationship with, their interlocutors.

We would like to express our gratitude to all families who participated in the MELLE study. We would also like to thank all research assistants and students who contributed to the data collection. Specifically, we would like to acknowledge the dedication and conscientiousness put into the video coding by Anna Van der Gaast-Witkowska, Danaé Dekker, Cecile Folio, and Jolijn de Groot. Finally, we thank the Center for Information Technology of the University of Groningen for their support and for providing access to the Peregrine high performance computing cluster for running OpenPose.

Background: One of the main diagnostic features of individuals with autism spectrum disorders is nonverbal behaviour difficulties during naturalistic social interactions. The 'Interactional Heterogeneity Hypothesis' of ASD proposes that the degree to which individuals share a common ground substantially influences their ability to achieve smooth social interactions. Methods: To test this hypothesis, we filmed 29 autistic and 29 matched typically developed adults engaged in several conversational tasks. Windowed cross-lagged correlations were computed using the time series of motion energy of both individuals in a dyad. These coefficients were then compared across the three dyad types that were homo-or heterogenous with respect to diagnosis: pairs of two autistic individuals, two typically developed individuals or pairs of one autistic and one typically developed person. Results: We found that all dyad types achieved above-chance interpersonal synchrony, but that synchrony was more expressed in typical dyads compared to both autistic and mixed dyads. Limitations: The method presented here provides only one, albeit objective and robust, approach to explore synchrony. The methodological choices as well as the lack of consideration for other communication modalities may limit our interpretation of the findings. Moreover, the sample size is small with respect to exploring associations between synchrony and various outcome and social skill measures. Conclusions: The present results do not provide support for the Interactional Heterogeneity Hypothesis given that autistic individuals do not coordinate better when interacting with another autistic individual, compared to when interacting with a typical individual.

Cross-recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA) is a powerful nonlinear time-series method to study coordination and cooperation between people. This chapter concentrates on two methodological issues related to CRQA on categorical data streams, which are commonly encountered in the behavioral sciences. Firstly, we introduce a more general definition of recurrence as 'behavioral matching', which can be applied to several kinds of matches simultaneously, visualized by a color coding. We will refer to this as cross-matching, and to the resulting quantification procedure as Chromatic CRQA. Secondly, cross-recurrence plots of categorical data often prominently consists of rectangular structures. This calls for a differential analysis of vertical and horizontal lines, rather than of diagonal lines. We introduce a simple procedure for this, referred to as Anisotropic CRQA. Both procedures are demonstrated with empirical studies on children's problem-solving behavior and by means of a model simulation. The authors hope that the ideas presented here increase the power and applicability of CRQA in the behavioral sciences, and that this chapter serves as a stepping stone for their mathematical and methodological development.

Interpersonal synchronization is fundamental for motor coordination during social interactions. Discerning emergent (entrainment) from planned synchronization represents a non-trivial issue in visually bonded individuals acting together, as well as assessing whether inter-individual differences, e.g., in autistic traits, modulate both types of synchronization. In a visuomotor finger-tapping task, two participants replicated a target tempo either synchronizing ('joint' condition) or not ('non-interactive' condition, 'non-int') with each other. One participant was exposed ('induced') to tempo aftereffect (a medium tempo seems faster or slower after exposure to slower or faster inducing tempi), but not the other participant ('not induced'); thus they had different timing perceptions of the same target. We assessed to what degree emergent and/or planned synchronization affected dyads by analyzing inter-tap-intervals, synchronization indexes, and cross-correlation coefficients. Results revealed a 'tempo aftereffect contagion': inter-tap-intervals of both induced and not-induced participants showed aftereffect in both the joint and non-int conditions. Moreover, aftereffects did not correlate across conditions suggesting they might be due to (at least in part) different processes, but the propensity for tempo aftereffect contagion correlated with individuals' autistic traits only in the non-int condition. Finally, participants coadjusted their tapping more in the joint condition than in the non-int one, as confirmed by higher synchronization indexes and the mutual adaptation pattern of cross-correlation coefficients. Altogether, these results show the subtle interplay between emergent and planned interpersonal synchronization mechanisms that act on a millisecond timescale independently from synching or not with the partner.

Objectives: Aging is a complex phenomenon, with numerous simultaneous processes that interact with each other on a moment-to-moment basis. One way to quantify the interactions of these processes is by measuring how much a process is similar to its own past states or the past states of another system through the analysis of recurrence. This paper presents an introduction to recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) and cross-recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA), two dynamical systems analysis techniques that provide ways to characterize the self-similar nature of each process and the properties of their mutual temporal co-occurrence. Method: We present RQA and CRQA and demonstrate their effectiveness with an example of conversational movements across age groups. Results: RQA and CRQA provide methods of analyzing the repetitive processes that occur in day-today life, describing how different processes co-occur, synchronize, or predict each other and comparing the characteristics of those processes between groups. Discussion: With intensive longitudinal data becoming increasingly available, it is possible to examine how the processes of aging unfold. RQA and CRQA provide information about how one process may show patterns of internal repetition or echo the patterning of another process and how those characteristics may change across the process of aging.

The human perceptual-motor system is tightly coupled to the physical and informational dynamics of a task environment. These dynamics operate to constrain the high-dimensional order of the human movement system into low-dimensional, task-specific synergies-functional groupings of structural elements that are temporarily constrained to act as a single coordinated unit. The aim of the current study was to determine whether synergistic processes operate when coacting individuals coordinate to perform a discrete joint-action task. Pairs of participants sat next to each other and each used 1 arm to complete a pointer-to-target task. Using the uncontrolled manifold (UCM) analysis for the first time in a discrete joint action, the structure of joint-angle variance was examined to determine whether there was synergistic organization of the degrees of freedom employed at the interpersonal or intrapersonal levels. The results revealed that the motor actions performed by coactors were synergis...

Los aspectos éticos de una propuesta de investigación no están contenidos solamente en un apartado y en el formulario de consentimiento informado, en realidad forman parte esencial de todo el protocolo desde el inicio hasta el final. De manera complementaria a los documentos regulatorios y educativos, el objetivo en este artículo es proponer una lista de cotejo de preguntas para que el investigador pueda asegurarse de haber incluido la información y elementos necesarios para cumplir con los aspectos éticos que toda investigación con seres humanos demanda, a la cual llamaremos LAEIH (Lista para Aspectos Éticos de Investigaciones en Humanos). Proponemos preguntas que deben hacerse los investigadores al redactar los antecedentes, la justificación, objetivos, pregunta de investigación, hipótesis, criterios se selección, cálculo de tamaño de muestra, muestreo, diseño de investigación, plan de análisis estadístico, aspectos éticos, plan de publicación y referencias. 

A person's behavior tends to be similar to that of the robot with which he or she is interacting, and this tendency is called entrainment. In this paper, we reveal the robot gestures that are important to the entrainment of people's pointing gestures. We conducted a laboratory experiment using a Wizard-of-Oz paradigm in which a participant and a robot have an object-reference conversation. The frequencies of a participant's pointing gestures in conversation were compared among three conditions: (1) gazing, (2) pointing and (3) gazing&pointing conditions. The results show that the participants in the gazing&pointing condition used the most pointing gestures, while those in the pointing condition used the fewest pointing gestures. This suggests that a robot's gazing gestures play an important role in the entrainment of people's pointing gestures.

Previous research on coordination dynamics of 1 vs. 1 sub-phases in team sports has reported stable emergent patterns of coordination in the displacement trajectories of attackers and defenders. The aim of this study was to use attacker-defender interactions in competitive team match-play to investigate how the locations of the goal and ball constrain the patternforming dynamics of attacker-defender dyadic systems. Ten high-level futsal matches were filmed and 13 goal sequences selected for analysis. Displacements of the players and the ball were filmed and digitized from 52 attacker-defender dyadic system interactions. Results showed that, although attackers and defenders exhibited similar angular orientations to the goal, the latter always remained closer to the goal than attackers. Observations revealed that in-phase patterns of coordination emerged from changes to both the distances and angles of attackers and defenders to the goal. Attackers always remained closer to the ball than defenders, while the latter exhibited a lower angle to the ball than attackers. A pattern of in-phase coordination modes emerged between the attackers and defenders' distances and angles to the ball. This study helps us to understand interpersonal interactions in team sports by explaining how attackers and defenders use information about their relative positioning to the goal and the ball to perform successfully.

زمینه و هدف: مطالعات گذشته در زمینه تاثیر کشش­های ایستا و پویا بر عملکرد نتایج متناقضی ارائه داده­ اند. در مطالعه حاضر با استفاده از روش­ های نوین تحلیل غیرخطی تاثیر این دو کشش بر فعالیت الکتریکی عضلات اندام تحتانی بررسی شد. هدف از این مطالعه بررسی غیرخطی پایداری دینامیک موضعی فعالیت الکتریکی عضلات اندام تحتانی پس از کشش ایستا و پویا در مردان فعال حین رکاب زدن بود. روش تحقیق: 15 دانشجوی پسر (وزن 10/52±69/02 کیلوگرم، قد 6/74±174/00 سانتی­متر و سن 1/47±21/20 سال) علوم ورزشی به صورت داوطلبانه در این مطالعه شرکت کردند. آزمودنی­ ها در طی دو روز با اختلاف 48 ساعت در هر مراجعه به آزمایشگاه مراجعه کردند و در حالت­ های بدون کشش و پس از گذشت 2، 5 و 10 دقیقه از کشش ایستا و پویا، اطلاعات فعالیت الکتریکی شش عضله اندام تحتانی آن ها در 30 چرخه رکاب زدن روی چرخ کارسنج ثبت شد. اطلاعات فیلتر شده فعالیت الکتریکی عضلات، جهت ساختن سری زمانی و محاسبه نمای لیاپانوف استخراج شدند. یافته­ ها: نتایج آزمون تحلیل واریانس با اندازه­ گیری تکراری نشان داد نمای لیاپانوف فعالیت الکتریکی عضلات منتخب در وهله­ های 2، 5...

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During social interaction, the behavior of interacting partners becomes coordinated. Although interpersonal coordination is well-studied in adults, relatively little is known about its development. In this project we explored how 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old children spontaneously coordinated their drumming with a peer. Results showed that all children adapted their drumming to their partner's drumming by starting and stopping their drumming in a coordinated fashion, but only 4-year-olds adapted the rhythmic structure of their drumming to their partner's drumming. In all age groups, children showed similarly stable drumming. Typically, it was 1 of the 2 children who initiated drumming throughout the session. The results of this study offer new insights into the development of interpersonal coordination abilities in early childhood.

Background and aims: Health care sector has job-related health problems and hazards. Patient handling is a main risk factor of musculoskeletal disorders among Health Care Workers (HCW). The present study aimed to perform ergonomic evaluation of client transfer between bed and stretcher through common way and using mechanical patient transfer aid device. Methods: In this study, parameters of comfort, perceived physical exertion and safety of a patient handling assistive device was measured from users' and clients' viewpoints. Thirty seven health care workers of a hospital in Shiraz city who had experience in patient transfer participated in the study. The data were collected using a five point likert scale (1= worse condition and 5= better condition), likert-type scale for rating (Borg scale), and Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) for user's posture analysis. Statistical analyses were performed using Wilcoxon, Fischer and Paired t-test analyses. Results: The mean (SD) of users' comfort while using the aid device was 4.48 (0.50), and the means (SD) of clients' comfort and safety regarding mechanical transfer method were 4.21 (0.47) and 4.40 (0.49), respectively. The results revealed a significant reduction in the users' rating of perceived exertion while doing the job by the device as compared to manual operation (P<0.001). The results of posture analysis showed that for approximately 90% of the users in manual transfer the REBA score was 4 (very high risk level) whereas REBA score for more than 80% of the users in mechanical handling was 2 indicating medium risk level. Conclusion: According to the findings, using mechanical assistive device increased the users' and the clients' comfort, reduced the users' physical exertion, and improved their working postures. It is believed that using mechanical patient handling aid device may reduce MSDs risk among HCWs.

Philosophers have proposed that when people coordinate their actions with others they may experience a sense of joint agency, or shared control over actions and their effects. However, little empirical work has investigated the sense of joint agency. In the current study, pairs coordinated their actions to produce tone sequences and then rated their sense of joint agency on a scale ranging from shared to independent control. People felt more shared than independent control overall, confirming that people experience joint agency during joint action. Furthermore, people felt stronger joint agency when they a) produced sequences that required mutual coordination compared to sequences in which only one partner had to coordinate with the other, b) held the role of follower compared to leader, and c) were better coordinated with their partner. Thus, the strength of joint agency is influenced by the degree to which people mutually coordinate with each other's actions.

Collective organization in multi-party conversations emerges through the exchange of utterances between participants. While most research has focused on content-centred mechanisms that lead to emergent conversational coordination, less attention has been given to explaining conversational order based on who is addressed and who responds, especially when dealing with large conversational datasets. In this paper, we introduce a Python library, ParShift , that implements a state-of-the-art theoretical quantitative framework known as Participation Shifts. This framework enables researchers to study participant-centred order and differentiation in multi-party conversations. With ParShift , researchers can characterize conversations by quantifying the probabilities of events related to how people address each other during conversations. This library is particularly useful for studying conversation threads in social networks, parliamentary debates, team meetings, or student debates on a large scale. Code metadata Current code version v1.

Social exergames provide immersive experiences of social interaction via online multiplayer games, ranging from simple group exercises (e.g., virtual cycling/rowing) to more structured multiplayer games (e.g., cooperative boat racing). In exergame design, interpersonal synchrony plays an important role as it enhances social rapport and prosocial behavior. In this paper, we build ExerSync platform that supports various assistive mechanisms for facilitating interpersonal synchrony even with heterogeneous exercise modalities. We consider a rhythm of body movements in repetitive aerobic exercises and explore the design space of incorporating rhythm into exergames. We build a prototype system and comparatively evaluate the effectiveness of various assistive mechanisms. The experiment results show that rhythm significantly lowers the perceived workloads and provides better competence and engagement, but the accuracy of interpersonal synchrony is not dependent on the use of rhythm.

The spontaneous and intentional movement coordination between peoples is well understood. Less is known about such interactions when the coordination is subordinate to the task and when the task involves, next to vision, mechanically induced haptic and kinesthetic coupling between dyadic partners. We therefore investigated dyadic jump rope turning. Fifteen dyadic pairs conjointly turned a jump rope to which five markers were equidistantly attached, and whose movements were recorded in 3D. In addition, each participant turned one side of the rope while the other side was quasi-fixed in an individual baseline condition. The participants&#39; goal was to turn the rope regularly and smoothly. Individual spontaneous turning frequencies differed substantially across participants. Yet, dyadic pairs spontaneously turned the rope at a common frequency, indicative of frequency entrainment. The dyadic rope rotations were less variable despite weaker between near-hand marker coordination than t...

Os mais sinceros agradecimentos ao Professor Doutor Luís Xarez pelo apoio e pelas orientações assertivas, e pela amizade. Ao Professor Doutor Pedro Passos pela disponibilidade e amabilidade na orientação e esclarecimento na leitura dos dados. À Professora Doutora Ana Diniz pela simpatia, disponibilidade e ensinamentos estatísticos fundamentais para a realização deste trabalho. Um agradecimento muito especial à Professora Doutora Maria João Alves pela incansável e preciosa ajuda na reta final deste trabalho, e por todos os ensinamentos ao longo destes anos. Um agradecimento muito especial às Professoras Doutoras Elisabete Monteiro e Margarida Moura pela preocupação, ensinamentos e conselhos sempre em boa hora e pelo, "precisas de alguma coisa?". O agradecimento a todos os professores do Departamento de Dança, pelos ensinamentos e apoio durante o meu percurso académico. O agradecimento ao Laboratório de Comportamento Motor de FMH, pelo acolhimento e apoio durante a elaboração deste trabalho. À minha amiga Lígia Thomé pela prontidão e disponibilidade na hora de recolher dados. Aos bailarinos pela participação e disponibilidade imediata em colaborar no estudo. Em especial à Sasha Mendes pela maratona da recolha de dados. À minha parceira e amiga Daniela Oliveira "Ni", pela preciosa ajuda na recolha de dados e pelo nosso magnífico e inesquecível percurso académico, pelo apoio incondicional, pelos conselhos e principalmente pela amizade. Ao Alberto Rodrigues presidente da Federação de Dança Desportiva, pela amizade, disponibilidade e ensinamentos. Agradecimento aos Alunos de Apolo Lisboa, pela receção e apoio no decorrer da competição. À minha família, em especial à minha tia Isabel por toda a ajuda e mais alguma… Ao Hugo por toda a paciência e apoio incondicional e à minha filha Carolina pelas noites bem dormidas e sorrisos matinais. À minha mãe por todo o apoio e mais algum, pelos conselhos sempre na hora certa, por estar sempre presente, pela amizade, cumplicidade… obrigada por tudo que fizeste por mim e continuas a fazer.

Although the link between motor synchrony and emotional alignment has been extensively studied during face-to-face interaction, the question of whether this association also exists in virtual settings has remained unanswered. Here, we examined whether this link exists during virtual social interactions and whether pro-social effects will be induced during those interactions. To this end, two strangers shared difficulties they have experienced due to the COVID-19 pandemic during a virtual social interaction that included both audio and video. The findings revealed that motor synchrony and emotional alignment can arise spontaneously during a virtual social interaction between two strangers. Moreover, this interaction yielded a decrease in negative affect and an increase in positive affect, as well as an increase in feelings of trust, liking, cohesion, self-other overlap, and similarity between the strangers. Finally, a higher level of synchrony during the virtual interaction was speci...

Although the link between synchrony and emotional contagion has been studied extensively during face-to-face interaction, the question of whether this association also exists in virtual settings has remained unanswered. Here, we examined whether this link exists during virtual social interactions and whether pro-social effects will be induced during those interactions. To this end, two strangers shared difficulties they have experienced due to the COVID-19 pandemic during a virtual social interaction. The findings revealed that spontaneous motor synchrony and emotional contagion can arise during a virtual social interaction between two strangers and that this kind of interaction has pro-social effects. It can thus be presumed that virtual social interactions may share similar characteristics and social effects with face-to-face interactions. Considering the tremendous changes COVID-19 epidemic has caused regarding social communication, these findings may provide grounds for developi...

Growing evidence demonstrates that aging not only leads to structural and functional alterations of individual components of the neuro-musculo-skeletal system (NMSS) but also results in a systemic reorganization of interactions within and between the different levels and functional domains. Understanding the principles that drive the dynamics of these reorganizations is an important challenge for aging research. The present Hypothesis and Theory paper is a contribution in this direction. We propose that age-related declines in brain and behavior that have been characterized in the literature as dedifferentiation and the loss of complexity (LOC) are: (i) synonymous; and (ii) integrated. We argue that a causal link between the aforementioned phenomena exists, evident in the dynamic changes occurring in the aging NMSS. Through models and methods provided by a dynamical systems approach to coordination processes in complex living systems, we: (i) formalize operational hypotheses about the general principles of changes in cross-level and cross-domain interactions during aging; and (ii) develop a theory of the aging NMSS based on the combination of the frameworks of coordination dynamics (CD), dedifferentiation, and LOC. Finally, we provide operational predictions in the study of aging at neural, muscular, and behavioral levels, which lead to testable hypotheses and an experimental agenda to explore the link between CD, LOC and dedifferentiation within and between these different levels.

An affordance perspective highlights how resourceful the ecology is for creative actions of all sorts; it captures how creativity is grounded in materiality. In contrast to "canonical affordances" (i.e., "ready-to-hand," mundane instances), creative affordances point to unconventional or surprising action opportunities that are nonetheless valued. Our initial aim is to discuss how to frame the affordance concept to make it attractive for the study of creativity. We propose a dialectic position that reconciles aspects of the realism of ecological psychology with the constructivist view more typical of creativity scholars. We stress that novel options frequently depend on constructive actions; novelty cannot always simply be "found" or just waits to be used. Many creative opportunities only emerge from how person actively engages with the ecology. Our second aim is to explore specific ways that creativity is mediated through affordances, based on illustrations from crafts and dance. These suggest that affordances span various timescales and mediate in multiple ways, from noticing existing potentials, via active affordance shaping, to background activities that indirectly invite or enable novelty. In conclusion we discuss how a person's creative "vision," imagination and combinatoric ability, all fundamental creativity mechanisms, relate to affordances and how fruitful creative directions may be perceptually hinted at.

Interpersonal coordination requires precise actions concerted in space and time in a self-organized manner. We found, using soccer teams as a testing ground, that a common timeframe provided by adequate acoustic stimuli improves the interplay between teammates. We provide quantitative evidence that the connectivity between teammates and the scoring rate of male soccer teams improve significantly when playing under the influence of an appropriate acoustic environment. Unexpectedly, female teams do not show any improvement under the same experimental conditions. We show by follow-up experiments that the acoustic rhythm modulates the attention level of the participants with a pronounced tempo preference and a marked gender difference in the preferred tempo. These results lead to a consistent explanation in terms of the dynamical system theory, nonlinear resonances, and dynamic attention theory, which may illuminate generic mechanisms of the brain dynamics and may have an impact on the ...

The task constraints imposed upon a co-actor can often influence our own actions. Likewise, the observation of somebody else’s movements can involuntarily contaminate the execution of our own movements. These joint action outcomes have rarely been considered in unison. The aim of the present study was to simultaneously examine the underlying processes contributing to joint action. We had pairs of participants work together to execute sequential aiming movements between two targets—the first person’s movement was contingent upon the anticipation of the second person’s movement (leader), while the second person’s movement was contingent upon the direct observation of the first person’s movement (follower). Participants executed separate blocks of two-target aiming movements under different contexts; that is, solely on their own using one (2T1L) and two (2T2L) of their upper limbs, or with another person (2T2P). The first movement segment generally indicated a more abrupt approach (sho...

Autism is a lifelong disorder, defined by deficits in social interactions and flexibility. To date, diagnostic markers for autism primarily include limitations in social behavior and cognition. However, such tests have often shown to be inadequate for individuals with autism who are either more cognitively able or intellectually disabled. The assessment of the social limitations of autism would benefit from new tests that capture the dynamics of social initiative and reciprocity in interaction processes, and that are not dependent on intellectual or verbal skills. New entry points for the development of such assessments may be found in 'bodily connectedness', the attunement of bodily movement between two individuals. In typical development, bodily connectedness is related to psychological connectedness, including social skills and relation quality. Limitations in bodily connectedness could be a central mechanism underlying the social impairment in autism. While bodily connectedness can be minutely assessed with advanced techniques, our understanding of these skills in autism is limited. This Perspective provides examples of how the potential relation between bodily connectedness and specific characteristics of autism can be examined using methods from the coordination dynamics approach. Uncovering this relation is particularly important for developing sensitive tools to assess the tendency to initiate social interactions and the dynamics of mutual adjustments during social interactions, as current assessments are not suited to grasp ongoing dynamics and reciprocity in behavior. The outcomes of such research may yield valuable openings for the development of diagnostic markers for autism that can be applied across the lifespan.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of physical training and working memory training on mental rotation ability. 45 non-athlete female students were purposively selected and randomly assigned to one of these groups: aerobic training, working memory training and control (each group 15 subjects). This study was quasi-experimental, which was a type of pretest-posttest with a control group. Mental rotation test was conducted for the sample. Physical training and working memory training groups participated respectively in aerobic training and working memory training for 30 minutes daily for two weeks. The control group performed their daily activities. Results of ANOVA with repeated measures showed that aerobic and working memory training affected mental rotation ability (P≤0.05). The findings suggested that cognitive abilities are facilitated by cognitive and motor interventions.

Star tracker is one of the most important devices used on satellites for attitude determination. Since its output is discontinuous, it needs a complementary unit to cover its discontinuities. Using gyroscope unit is the most suitable choice for aiding the star tracker. However, using these two kinds of sensor simultaneously has some challenges. In other words, not only not only sensor biases decrease the accuracy of attitude determination, but also the installation error has a significant effect on the accuracy. In this paper, after presenting the important role of installation errors between star tracker and gyroscope in the accuracy of attitude determination, an effective method is proposed to determine the misalignment error between these two sensors which is only based on their measurements, and the mathematical formulation is presented in detail. Finally, to validate the performance of the proposed method, it is implemented to calculate the instantiation error of an experimental dataset gathered in the Mount Pooladkaf, And the results are reported in the form of graphs and tables.

Human social behaviour is complex, and the biological and neural mechanisms underpinning it remain debated. A particularly interesting social phenomenon is our ability and tendency to fall into synchrony with other humans. Our ability to coordinate actions and goals relies on the ability to distinguish between and integrate self and other, which when impaired can lead to devastating consequences. Interpersonal synchronization has been a widely used framework for studying action coordination and self-other integration, showing that in simple interactions, such as joint finger tapping, complex interpersonal dynamics emerge. Here we propose a computational model of self-other integration via within- and between-person action-perception links, implemented as a simple Kuramoto model with four oscillators. The model abstracts each member of a dyad as a unit consisting of two connected oscillators, representing intrinsic processes of perception and action. By fitting this model to data fro...

We present a demo showing different levels of emergent verbal behaviour that arise when speech is added to a robotics simulator. After showing examples of (silent) robot activities in the simulator, adding speech output enables the robot to give spoken explanations of its behaviour. Adding speech input allows the robot's movements to be guided by voice commands. In addition, the robot can modify its own verbal behaviour when asked to talk less or more. The robotics toolkit supports different behavioural paradigms, including finite state machines. The demo shows an example state transition based spoken dialogue system implemented within the robotics framework. Other more experimental combinations of speech and robot behaviours will also be shown.

Social exergames provide immersive experiences of social interaction via online multiplayer games, ranging from simple group exercises (e.g., virtual cycling/rowing) to more structured multiplayer games (e.g., cooperative boat racing). In exergame design, interpersonal synchrony plays an important role as it enhances social rapport and prosocial behavior. In this paper, we build ExerSync platform that supports various assistive mechanisms for facilitating interpersonal synchrony even with heterogeneous exercise modalities. We consider a rhythm of body movements in repetitive aerobic exercises and explore the design space of incorporating rhythm into exergames. We build a prototype system and comparatively evaluate the effectiveness of various assistive mechanisms. The experiment results show that rhythm significantly lowers the perceived workloads and provides better competence and engagement, but the accuracy of interpersonal synchrony is not dependent on the use of rhythm.

Humans coordinate their movements with one another in a range of everyday activities and skill domains. Optimal joint performance requires the continuous anticipation of and adaptation to each other's movements, especially when actions are spontaneous rather than pre-planned. Here we employ dual-EEG and frequencytagging techniques to investigate how the neural tracking of self-and other-generated movements supports interpersonal coordination during improvised motion. LEDs flickering at 5.7 and 7.7 Hz were attached to participants' index fingers in 28 dyads as they produced novel patterns of synchronous horizontal forearm movements. EEG responses at these frequencies revealed enhanced neural tracking of self-generated movement when leading and of other-generated movements when following. A marker of self-other integration at 13.4 Hz (intermodulation frequency of 5.7 and 7.7 Hz) peaked when no leader was designated, and mutual adaptation and movement synchrony were maximal. Furthermore, the amplitude of EEG responses reflected differences in the capacity of dyads to synchronize their movements, offering a neurophysiologically grounded perspective for understanding perceptual-motor mechanisms underlying joint action.

When interlocutors repeatedly describe referents to each other, they rapidly converge on referring expressions which become increasingly systematized and abstract as the interaction progresses. Previous experimental research suggests that interactive repair mechanisms in dialogue underpin convergence. However this research has so far only focused on the role of other-initiated repair and has not examined whether self-initiated repair might also play a role. To investigate this question we report the results from a computer-mediated maze task experiment. In this task, participants communicate with each other via an experimental chat tool, which selectively transforms participants’ private turn-revisions into public self-repairs that are made visible to the other participant. For example, if a participant, A, types “On the top square”, and then before sending, A revises the turn to “On the top row”, the server automatically detects the revision and transforms the private turn-revision...

The aim of present study is to investigate effect of the quiet eye and quiet mind training on the dart throw learning. Thirty young males were selected with 24.53 mean aged through convenience sampling and randomly divided into quiet eye group, quiet mind group and control group. The study was conducted in four phases, including: Pre-test, training in quiet eye and quiet mind training, retention 1, under pressure test and retention 2. Descriptive statistics, Mixed ANOVA and post-hoc Bonferroni correction were used to data analyze. The results of the study showed that radial error of all groups dwindled as the result of training. Moreover, the radial error of quiet group was lower than other groups and that of quiet mind group was lower control group. Likewise, quiet eye and mind groups were capable of maintaing their performance in the underpressure test rather than control group. The results of this study suggest that quiet mind and quiet eye training would be beneficial as a tool to prime impilicit learning conditions. ‫حرکتی‬ ‫رفتار‬ ‫و‬ ‫ورزشی‬ ‫مدیریت‬ ‫در‬ ‫پژوهش‬ ‫دوفصلنامه‬-‫شماره‬ ‫پیاپی)،‬ ‫نوزدهم‬ (‫دهم‬ ‫سال‬ 91 (53 ‫زمستان‬ ‫و‬ ‫پاییز‬ ‫پیاپی)،‬ 9511

Collective behaviors in team sports result in players forming interpersonal synergies that contribute to performance goals. Because of the huge amount of variables that continuously constrain players' behavior during a game, the way that these synergies are formed remain unclear. Our aim was to quantify interpersonal synergies in the team sport of Rugby Union. For that purpose we used the Uncontrolled Manifold Hypothesis (UCM) to identify interpersonal synergies that are formed between ball carrier and support player in two-versus-one situations in Rugby Union. The inter-player angle close to the moment of the pass was used as a performance variable and players running lines velocities as taskrelevant elements. Interpersonal synergies (UCM values above 1) were found in 19 out of 55 trials under analysis, which means that on 34% of the trials, the players' running line velocities contribute to stabilizing the inter-player angle close the moment of the pass. The strength of the synergy fluctuates over time indicating the existence of a location effect during attack phases in Rugby Union. UCM analysis shows considerable promise as a performance analysis tool in team sports to discriminate between skilled subgroups of players.

Objectives: Each step during gait requires different attention demands that will affect muscles activity. The study of changes in the timing and intensity of the muscles activity in walking with dual task has received less attention from researchers. The p...

Analysis of coordinated interpersonal timing has become an important tool for the study of infant-adult, peer, and marital interactions. Past research suggests that social coordination is informative about the quality of the caregiver-child social relationship. Does infant experience of certain types of coordination and pattern in early social interactions with caregivers predict better cognitive and social developmental outcomes? The recent