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Motion coordination affects movement parameters in a joint pick-and-place task
Abstract
This study examined influences of social context on movement parameters in a pick-and-place task. Participants' motion trajectories were recorded while they performed sequences of natural movements either working side-by-side with a partner or alone. It was expected that movement parameters would be specifically adapted to the joint condition to overcome the difficulties arising from the requirement to coordinate with another person. To disentangle effects based on participants' effort to coordinate their movements from effects merely due to the other's presence, a condition was included where only one person performed the task while being observed by the partner. Results indicate that participants adapted their movements temporally and spatially to the joint action situation: Overall movement duration was shorter, and mean and maximum velocity was higher when actually working together than when working alone. Pick-to-place trajectories were also shifted away from the partner in spatial coordinates. The partner's presence as such did not have an impact on movement parameters. These findings are interpreted as evidence for the use of implicit strategies to facilitate movement coordination in joint action tasks.
... Participants started with arms resting naturally by their sides. Emotional stimuli, sourced from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) (12). , were chosen based on valence and intensity and projected on a screen. ...
Background: In sports and physical education, success requires a range of competencies. Structuring activities within a cooperative or competitive social context can enhance motivation and performance.
Objectives: The study aimed to investigate the influence of different social contexts, specifically competition and cooperation, on motor, cognitive, and affective behaviors among physical education students.
Methods: We focused on two predominant social contexts: cooperation and competition. For this purpose, seventy participants (Age: 21.96±1.92 years, Height: 1.69±0.09m, Weight: 64.67±10.37kg, 28 males) voluntarily participated in the present study. Each was paired and given instructions to either work collaboratively with their partner or compete against them. For motion analysis, we utilized Adobe Premier software; its suitability for this study was determined by its capability to capture detailed motion kinematics. Affective states were gauged through a specialized deep-learning model designed for facial expression recognition. Further details about the model's training and specificity are provided within the main manuscript.
Results: Participants exhibited shorter movement durations in cooperative (679±320 ms; p<0.001) and competitive contexts (707±356 ms; p<0.001) compared to individual scenarios. Similarly, the accuracy was enhanced in cooperative and competitive conditions. Reaction time was notably quicker in the competition setting (186 ±78 ms) compared to individual contexts, especially with positive (180±150 ms) and negative stimuli. Emotional correspondence was significantly higher in cooperative and competitive settings, particularly in response to positive stimuli. However, emotional stability did not significantly differ across social contexts.
Conclusion: Drawing upon insights from neuroimaging, developmental, and social psychology, our results highlight the significant influence of social contexts, especially cooperation and competition, on motor function, responsiveness, and emotional well-being during dart-shooting tasks. In practical terms, educators and trainers in physical education can use these findings to optimize student and athlete performance. By designing activities that emphasize cooperative interactions, we can not only enhance motor skills but also improve emotional states. Furthermore, the implications of this study extend beyond sports. Other learning or professional environments could benefit from a thoughtful balance between cooperative and competitive elements, potentially transforming training methodologies and team dynamics across various fields.
... On the other hand, when the collaborative similarity is causing the individual focus, then when the students in a dyad are looking at similar parts of the problem, they are more likely to then focus on a part of the problem. This is analogous to the planned coordination, where the peers use the context (dialogues) and knowledge to achieve a common goal with others (Vesper, Soutschek, & Schubö, 2009). The key difference between the two causalities, 'looking at the same place hence focused' and 'focused hence looking at the same place', might explain whether collaborative processes are driving the individual processes or the other way around. ...
When students are working collaboratively and communicating verbally in a technology‐enhanced environment, the system cannot track what collaboration is happening outside of the technology, making it difficult to fully assess the collaboration of the students and adapt accordingly. In this article, we propose using gaze measures as a proxy for cognitive processes to achieve collaboration awareness. Specifically, we use Granger causality to analyse the causal relationships between collaborative and individual gaze measures from students working on a fractions intelligent tutoring system and the influence that the students' dialogue, prior knowledge, or success has on these relationships. We found that collaborative gaze patterns drive the individual focus in the pairs with high posttest scores and when they are engaged in problem‐solving dialogues but the opposite with low performing students. Our work adds to the literature by extending the correlational relationships between individual and collaborative gaze measures to causal relationships and suggests indicators that can be used within an adaptive system.
... joint action) includes three features: (i) mutual responsiveness, i.e. each participating agent attempts to be responsive to the intentions and actions of the other; (ii) appropriate commitment to the joint activity (an intention in favor to the joint activity, even if with different motivations); (iii) commitment to mutual support, i.e. each agent is committed to supporting the efforts of the other to play his/her role in the joint activity. Successful joint actions depend on the ability to dynamically adjust the individual action planning by simultaneously taking into account the actions performed by one's co-actor (Becchio et al., 2008;Vesper et al., 2009). This ability, called co-representation or shared representation, is based on the representation of the other's relevant actions by simulating and integrating own and other's action in real time (Bekkering et al., 2009;Sebanz et al., 2006). ...
Two-person neuroscience (2PN) is a recently introduced conceptual and methodological framework used to investigate the neural basis of human social interaction from simultaneous neuroimaging of two or more subjects (hyperscanning). In this study, we adopted a 2PN approach and a multiple-brain connectivity model to investigate the neural basis of a form of cooperation called joint action. We hypothesized different intra-brain and inter-brain connectivity patterns when comparing the interpersonal properties of joint action with non-interpersonal conditions, with a focus on co-representation, a core ability at the basis of cooperation. 32 subjects were enrolled in dual-EEG recordings during a computerized joint action task including three conditions: one in which the dyad jointly acted to pursue a common goal (joint), one in which each subject interacted with the PC (PC), and one in which each subject performed the task individually (Solo).
A combination of multiple-brain connectivity estimation and specific indices derived from graph theory allowed to compare interpersonal with non-interpersonal conditions in four different frequency bands. Our results indicate that all the indices were modulated by the interaction, and returned a significantly stronger integration of multiple-subject networks in the joint vs. PC and Solo conditions. A subsequent classification analysis showed that features based on multiple-brain indices led to a better discrimination between social and non-social conditions with respect to single-subject indices. Taken together, our results suggest that multiple-brain connectivity can provide a deeper insight into the understanding of the neural basis of cooperation in humans.
... In fact, it has been shown that partners will forego the quality of their own actions to complement and support the broader goal of moving with their partner (Schmitz et al., 2017). Some examples of how partners modify their actions for accomplishing the shared goal include changes in action speed or salience or workspace (Vesper et al., 2009(Vesper et al., , 2010(Vesper et al., , 2011Schmitz et al., 2017). In terms of cortical regions, the IFG region is considered important for goal understanding during goal-directed actions such as reaching (Fontana et al., 2012). ...
Interpersonal synchrony (IPS) is an important everyday behavior influencing social cognitive development; however, few studies have investigated the developmental differences and underlying neural mechanisms of IPS. functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a novel neuroimaging tool that allows the study of cortical activation in the presence of natural movements. Using fNIRS, we compared cortical activation patterns between children and adults during action observation, execution, and IPS. Seventeen school-age children and 15 adults completed a reach to cleanup task while we obtained cortical activation data from bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), superior temporal sulcus (STS), and inferior parietal lobes (IPL). Children showed lower spatial and temporal accuracy during IPS compared to adults (i.e., spatial synchrony scores (Mean ± SE) in children: 2.67 ± 0.08 and adults: 2.85 ± 0.06; temporal synchrony scores (Mean ± SE) in children: 2.74 ± 0.06 and adults: 2.88 ± 0.05). For both groups, the STS regions were more activated during action observation, while the IFG and STS were more activated during action execution and IPS. The IPS condition involved more right-sided activation compared to action execution suggesting that IPS is a higher-order process involving more bilateral cortical activation. In addition, adults showed more left lateralization compared to the children during movement conditions (execution and IPS); which indicated greater inhibition of ipsilateral cortices in the adults compared to children. These findings provide a neuroimaging framework to study imitation and IPS impairments in special populations such as children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
... Another type of coordination smoother is to structure the task in a way that reduces coordination demands, e.g., by moving away from shared task space and potential areas of collision (Richardson, Harrison, May, Kallen, & Schmidt, 2011;Richardson et al., 2015;Vesper, Soutschek, & Schubö, 2009) or by distributing the task efficiently (Brennan et al., 2008;Wahn, Kingstone, & König, 2017). Moreover, coordination can be simplified by using objects that afford a particular task distribution (Gibson, 1977), such as a heavy bag with two handles that affords being carried by two people with their left and right hand, respectively. ...
Humans constantly coordinate their actions with those of others, ranging from a handshake to the building of a house. What are the processes enabling individuals to perform such joint actions? The present work targets this question by investigating to what extent individuals integrate others’ constraints into their own actions when acting together. The first study explored whether individuals represent and adapt to a co-actor’s environmental constraint to achieve temporal coordination, even if this implies compromising the efficiency of their own movements. The results showed that unconstrained individuals represented the obstacle obstructing their co-actor’s movement path such that they moved as if an obstacle was obstructing their own path as well. A second study investigated whether co-actors represent the temporal structure of each other’s actions. Co-actors experienced interference when performing the same actions in a different order, indicating that they represented the order of each other’s actions although this was not necessary for joint task performance. A third study asked whether and how co-actors create novel communication systems to overcome knowledge constraints that impede coordination. Depending on situational factors, informed actors communicated by engaging in novel forms of sensorimotor communication or of symbolic communication. In sum, these studies show that individuals possess a distinct tendency to take others’ constraints into account when faced with the challenges of real-time action coordination. Specifically, individuals represent others’ environmental constraints, others’ task-specific constraints in the form of the temporal structure of their actions, and the knowledge others do (or do not) possess – and they integrate these constraints into their own actions even if this compromises individual efficiency. If overcoming another’s constraint requires an active transfer of information, individuals flexibly create novel communication systems. Taken together, the work presented in this thesis contributes to a better understanding of the processes underlying joint action and it provides further evidence of the human predisposition to act with others in mind.
... This interpersonal coordination can be characterized by the organization of movements and actions in such a way that they work together both smoothly and effectively. Laboratory tasks have been used to examine both spontaneous interpersonal coordination (e.g., Oullier et al. 2008;O'Brien 1997;Richardson et al. 2005) and instructed interpersonal coordination (e.g., Newman-Norlund et al. 2008;van Ulzen et al. 2008;Vesper et al. 2009). For example, Oullier et al. (2008) observed spontaneous synchrony as paired participants flexed and extended their right index fingers despite not being given any explicit instruction to do so. ...
A crew of two rowing together in perfect synchrony is an example of a task that requires each performer to maintain meticulous timing when coordinating their movements with the other. At the individual level, temporal coordination of the limbs has been observed in bimanual pointing movements even when made to targets of different distance. Timing of the arms is not independent; rather there is a natural temporal coupling. The aim of this experiment was to investigate whether the temporal characteristics of pointing movements can be observed under joint conditions. Sixteen pairs of participants made short and long, unimanual and bimanual pointing movements. In the unimanual and bimanual solo conditions, participants made the movements alone. In the joint condition, each participant contributed one arm to the joint “bimanual” movements. Absolute temporal coupling at movement initiation and termination was measured by the differences in reaction time and total response time. Relative temporal coupling at movement initiation and termination was measured by correlating reaction time and total response time of the left and right limbs. Pointing movements had synchronous movement termination in the bimanual solo conditions and asynchronous termination in the unimanual solo and bimanual joint conditions. The initiation and termination of the arms were not correlated in the unimanual solo condition (initiation r = 0.01, termination r = 0.03). Small-to-medium correlations (r = 0.19, r = 0.24) were observed in the bimanual joint condition, and they were larger than the unimanual solo condition (p = 0.022, p = 0.063). As expected, there were large correlations in the bimanual solo conditions (r = 0.91, r = 0.81). Our findings suggest that absolute temporal coupling does not occur between individuals, but there is evidence for relative temporal coupling in the bimanual joint condition.
... Indeed, in competitive contexts, negative consequences are anticipated by participants when performing the Preparatory action for the partner rather than for themselves whereas in cooperative contexts both types of intentions lead to the anticipation of positive consequences when performing the Preparatory action. This alternative interpretation is moreover supported by the observation that reaction time is affected by social intention in interactive context where participants ought to earn points through the realization of specific motor actions (Quesque & Coello, 2014;Quesque et al., 2013 but not for movement performed in response to explicit instructions (Becchio et al., 2008b) or in the context of joint-actions (Vesper, Soutschek, & Schubö, 2009). Considered as a whole, these new data suggest that when two participants are involved in an interactive task with the goal to be rewarded from their actions (e.g., , they spontaneously endorse a competitive attitude, even in the absence of any explicit instructions in this respect. ...
In social interactions, the movements performed by others can be used to anticipate their intention. The present paper investigates whether cooperative vs competitive contexts influence the kinematics of object-directed motor actions and whether they modulate the effect of social intention on motor actions. An “Actor” and a “Partner” participated in a task consisting in displacing a wooden dowel under time constraint. Before this Main action, the Actor performed a Preparatory action which consisted in placing the dowel at the center of the table. Information about who would make the forthcoming Main action was provided only to the Actor through headphones. Results demonstrate an exaggeration of spatial and temporal actions’ parameters when acting for the Partner, in cooperative, as well as in competitive context. This finding suggests that the motor manifestation of social intention is largely determined by non-conscious implicit processes that seem little influenced by the context of social interaction.
... There is also a growing body of literature on joint-action pick and place behavior, including the effects of action observation on an actors' hand movement trajectories and grasping behavior (e.g., Becchio et al., 2008Becchio et al., , 2012Costantini et al., 2011;Ellis et al., 2013), the movement and action decision dynamics of individuals working independently of one another in a shared task space Lorenz et al., 2014;Meyer et al., 2016;Scharoun et al., 2016), and when and how participants grasp, hold, and move objects together (e.g., Georgiou et al., 2007;Richardson et al., 2007;Vesper et al., 2009). As detailed above, joint-action pick and place behavior can also involve one agent passing an object to another agent when there is sufficient interaction between co-actors (Becchio et al., 2008;Meyer et al., 2013), with such interaction further increasing the constructive under-determinacy of how individuals are able to move an object from one location to another. ...
Humans commonly engage in tasks that require or are made more efficient by coordinating with other humans. In this paper we introduce a task dynamics approach for modeling multi-agent interaction and decision making in a pick and place task where an agent must move an object from one location to another and decide whether to act alone or with a partner. Our aims were to identify and model (1) the affordance related dynamics that define an actor's choice to move an object alone or to pass it to their co-actor and (2) the trajectory dynamics of an actor's hand movements when moving to grasp, relocate, or pass the object. Using a virtual reality pick and place task, we demonstrate that both the decision to pass or not pass an object and the movement trajectories of the participants can be characterized in terms of a behavioral dynamics model. Simulations suggest that the proposed behavioral dynamics model exhibits features observed in human participants including hysteresis in decision making, non-straight line trajectories, and non-constant velocity profiles. The proposed model highlights how the same low-dimensional behavioral dynamics can operate to constrain multiple (and often nested) levels of human activity and suggests that knowledge of what, when, where and how to move or act during pick and place behavior may be defined by these low dimensional task dynamics and, thus, can emerge spontaneously and in real-time with little a priori planning.
... In some instances, the key to coordination is monitoring each other's actions and predicting their effects on joint outcomes (Keller, 2012;Loehr, Kourtis, Vesper, Sebanz, & Knoblich, 2013;Radke, de Lange, Ullsperger, & de Bruijn, 2011). In other instances, co-actors minimize the time spent in a shared workspace and move away from potential areas of collision, thereby reducing the need for fine-grained coordination (Richardson, Harrison, May, Kallen, & Schmidt, 2011;Vesper, Soutschek, & Schubö, 2009). Further coordination processes include distributing tasks effectively (Brennan, Chen, Dickinson, Neider, & Zelinsky, 2008;Konvalinka, Vuust, Roepstorff, & Frith, 2010), providing communicative signals (Pezzulo, Donnarumma, & Dindo, 2013;Sacheli, Tidoni, Pavone, Aglioti, & Candidi, 2013;Vesper & Richardson, 2014) and keeping one's performance stable across consecutive instances of the same action (Vesper, van der Wel, Knoblich, & Sebanz, 2011). ...
Previous research has identified a number of coordination processes that enable people to perform joint actions. But what determines which coordination processes joint action partners rely on in a given situation? The present study tested whether varying the shared visual information available to co-actors can trigger a shift in coordination processes. Pairs of participants performed a movement task that required them to synchronously arrive at a target from separate starting locations. When participants in a pair received only auditory feedback about the time their partner reached the target they held their movement duration constant to facilitate coordination. When they received additional visual information about each other’s movements they switched to a fundamentally different coordination process, exaggerating the curvature of their movements to communicate their arrival time. These findings indicate that the availability of shared perceptual information is a major factor in determining how individuals coordinate their actions to obtain joint outcomes.
... En effet, aucune différence n'a été observée au niveau de la cinématique des mouvements réalisés en l'absence ou en présence de l'expérimentateur. Ce résultat est en accord avec de précédents travaux(Becchio et al., 2008a;Georgiou et al., 2007;Vesper, Soutschek, & Schubö, 2009) soutenant l'idée qu'une interaction avec un autre individu est nécessaire pour observer des déformations cinématiques dans les actions réalisées, contrastant de ce fait avec les situations de contexte social passif(Zajonc, 1965). Toutefois, les données de l'étude 1 doivent être nuancées puisque nous avons observé une diminution de l'accélération et du jerk des mouvements lorsque ces derniers sont réalisés dans un espace directement accessible par d'autres individus. ...
Cette thèse s’inscrit dans une approche incarnée de la cognition sociale, selon laquelle la capacité à comprendre les états mentaux d’autres individus ne nécessite aucune inférence mais repose plutôt sur l’expérience immédiate des informations sensori-motrices perçues lors d’interactions sociales. D’importantes limites ont été formulées à l’encontre de cette approche. Il est notamment considéré qu’elle ne peut rendre compte de phénomènes dits de « hauts niveaux » de mentalisation, comme l’inférence d’intentions sociales, puisqu’il n’existe pas de relations systématiques entre ces dernières et les systèmes de la perception et de l’action. A travers les études de cette thèse, nous avons tout d’abord mis en évidence des altérations systèmatiques de la cinématique de mouvements volontaires selon les intentions sociales poursuivies. Précisément, lorsqu’une action est produite avec l’intention de servir à un partenaire, ses caractéristiques spatio-temporelles sont amplifiées. Ensuite, nous avons démontré que ces déformations cinématiques étaient fonction des propriétés physiques, et particulièrement de la hauteur des yeux du partenaire. Enfin, nos résultats montrent que ces déformations cinématiques sont implicitement traitées lors d’interactions sociales et qu’elles entraînent l’inférence spontanée d’intention sociale. De façon intéressante, la capacité des participants à accéder à ces informations privées à partir de variations cinématiques était fortement liée à leurs capacités explicites de mentalisation. Ainsi, cette thèse fournit les premières évidences expérimentales soutenant la possibilité d’accéder spontanément aux intentions sociales d’autres personnes à partir de processus perceptifs et moteurs.
... However these findings derive from discrete and nonrepetitive tasks in which participants were not in an interaction situation at the same time. Vesper et al. (2009) showed that while jointly building a marble track by moving wooden building bricks from a defined start to a defined target position, movement velocity was increased compared to performing the same task alone. Similar to the present study, a decreased movement time and an increased path length (transport path) was observed during the joint action condition compared to single action. ...
Unintentional movement synchronization is often emerging between interacting humans. In the present study, we investigate the extent to which the incongruence of movement trajectories has an influence on unintentional dyadic movement synchronization. During a target-directed tapping task, a participant repetitively moved between two targets in front of another participant who performed the same task in parallel but independently. When the movement path of one participant was changed by placing an obstacle between the targets, the degree of their unintentional movement synchronization was measured. Movement synchronization was observed despite of their substantially different movement trajectories. A deeper investigation of the participant's unintentional behavior shows, that although the actor who cleared the obstacle puts unintentional effort in establishing synchrony by increasing movement velocity—the other actor also unintentionally adjusted his/her behavior by increasing dwell times. Results are discussed in the light of joint action, movement interference and obstacle avoidance behavior.
... People perform many actions jointly in order to reach a common goal, such as carrying a table or playing a music duet. This requires adjustments to individual action planning and control because the actions to be performed by one's co-actor must be taken into account (Becchio, Sartori, Bulgheroni, & Castiello, 2008;Vesper, Soutschek, & Schubo, 2009). Such adjustments take place even in cases where individuals would do better to ignore the actions of another person in order to effectively perform their tasks. ...
It has been postulated that when people engage in joint actions they form internal representations not only of their part of the joint task but of their co-actors' parts of the task as well. However, empirical evidence for this claim is scarce. By means of high-density electroencephalography, this study investigated whether one represents and simulates the action of an interaction partner when planning to perform a joint action. The results showed that joint action planning compared with individual action planning resulted in amplitude modulations of the frontal P3a and parietal P3b event-related potentials, which are associated with stimulus classification, updating of representations, and decision-making. Moreover, there was evidence for anticipatory motor simulation of the partner's action in the amplitude and peak latency of the late, motor part of the Contingent Negative Variation, which was correlated with joint action performance. Our results provide evidence that when people engage in joint tasks, they represent in advance each other's actions in order to facilitate coordination.
... If so then it would be performed slower than in joint action. Next, when the second person started moving, he/she entered a joint action task and may apply strategies other than those of the first person like leaving the target area more quickly [15]. The single action of one person in relation to the joint action strategy of the other person could lead to a decreased time difference which results again in an inphase relation as this is the closer attractor, so to say. ...
Synchronization occurs frequently in human behaviour: Everybody has experienced that in a group of people walking pace tends to equalize. The phenomenon of synchrony has been established in the literature in tasks which have little in common with daily life such as pendulum swinging and chair rocking. We extend the knowledge about human movement synchronization by showing that it also occurs during goal-directed actions. In a first experiment, we investigate how synchrony emerges develops over time. In a second experiment, we show that humans also synchronize their actions with a robot. Results are interpreted in the light of joint action theory. Possible implications and improvements for human-robot interaction are discussed.
... Participants then practised both parts simultaneously, following an initial metronome. The presence of the partner during all experimental conditions controlled for potential social facilitation effects (Vesper, Soutschek, & Schubö, 2009 ), and numerous repetitions of both musical parts during bimanual and joint practice ensured that participants could form a representation of the pitches and movements to be produced by their partners before the test trials began. After the experimental conditions had been completed, the participants repeated the control condition. ...
Many common behaviours require people to coordinate the timing of their actions with the timing of others' actions. We examined whether representations of musicians' actions are activated in coperformers with whom they must coordinate their actions in time and whether coperformers simulate each other's actions using their own motor systems during temporal coordination. Pianists performed right-hand melodies along with simple or complex left-hand accompaniments produced by themselves or by another pianist. Individual performers' preferred performance rates were measured in solo performance of the right-hand melody. The complexity of the left-hand accompaniment influenced the temporal grouping structure of the right-hand melody in the same way when it was performed by the self or by the duet partner, providing some support for the action corepresentation hypothesis. In contrast, accompaniment complexity had little influence on temporal coordination measures (asynchronies and cross-correlations between parts). Temporal coordination measures were influenced by a priori similarities between partners' preferred rates; partners who had similar preferred rates in solo performance were better synchronized and showed mutual adaptation to each other's timing during duet performances. These findings extend previous findings of action corepresentation and action simulation to a task that requires precise temporal coordination of independent yet simultaneous actions.
... Interestingly, verbal communication did not contribute to improving joint performance. In a joint building task, delimiting one's own task might mean moving in a way least likely to enter another's action space (Vesper, Soutschek, & Schubö, 2009). Imposing structure on a task might involve trying to relate one's actions to the other's actions in time. ...
What kinds of processes and representations make joint action possible? In this paper, we suggest a minimal architecture for joint action that focuses on representations, action monitoring and action prediction processes, as well as ways of simplifying coordination. The architecture spells out minimal requirements for an individual agent to engage in a joint action. We discuss existing evidence in support of the architecture as well as open questions that remain to be empirically addressed. In addition, we suggest possible interfaces between the minimal architecture and other approaches to joint action. The minimal architecture has implications for theorising about the emergence of joint action, for human-machine interaction, and for understanding how coordination can be facilitated by exploiting relations between multiple agents' actions and between actions and the environment.
Interpersonale Koordination zwischen Sportlern findet auf vielen verschiedenen Ebenen statt. Der sicher offensichtlichste Fall ist die Koordination unter Mannschaftssportlern, die Jahre dafür trainieren, sich perfekt aufeinander einzustellen. Doch interpersonale Koordination erfolgt auch unter Wettkämpfern, die gegeneinander antreten und im Sinne eines fairen Wettkampfs kooperativ bestimmte Regeln des Miteinanders einhalten. Sie erfolgt zudem unter Einzelsportlern, die gemeinsame Ressourcen wie Trainingsgeräte oder Schwimmbahnen nutzen und sich daher mit anderen koordinieren. Und schließlich basieren auch Interaktionen zwischen Sportlern und ihren Trainern auf Prinzipien der interpersonalen Koordination. In diesem Kapitel werden motorische und kognitive Mechanismen von interpersonaler Koordination vorgestellt und auf Szenarien des Sports angewandt. Dieser Beitrag ist Teil der Sektion Sportmotorik, herausgegeben von den Teilherausgebern Alfred Effenberg und Gerd Schmitz, innerhalb des Handbuchs Sport und Sportwissenschaft, herausgegeben von Arne Güllich und Michael Krüger.
Socially situated thought and behaviour are pervasive and vitally important in human society. The social brain has become a focus of study for researchers in the neurosciences, psychology, biology and other areas of behavioural science, and it is becoming increasingly clear that social behaviour is heavily dependent on shared representations. Any social activity, from a simple conversation to a well-drilled military exercise to an exquisitely perfected dance routine, involves information sharing between the brains of those involved. This volume comprises a collection of cutting-edge essays centred on the idea of shared representations, broadly defined. Featuring contributions from established world leaders in their fields and written in a simultaneously accessible and detailed style, this is an invaluable resource for established researchers and those who are new to the field.
Human cognitive and motor behavior is influenced by the social contexts. The aim of this systematic review is to investigate the impact of the social contexts on human behaviors. A systematic search of the literature was performed via Pub-Med/Medline, Web of sciences, Google scholar, Science direct, Springer-Link and EMBASE and 68 articles were selected. After applying all the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 16 articles were retained. The results show that the presence of other people and the social context influence motor behavior (i.e. movement duration, trajectory behavior, maximum speed) and cognitive behavior (reaction time). Studies have shown an improvement in performance in the presence of other people compared to the individual situation. However, other studies showed that the presence of other people led to deterioration in performance compared to the individual situation. The improvement of behavior is attributed to the social phenomenon of facilitation while the deterioration was explained by the conduct theory or the distraction conflict theory. These social phenomena of facilitation or inhibition could be related to the perception-action theory, which interferes with interaction with other. This, in turn, seems to be associated with neural circuits of mirror neurons and motor system.
Even the simplest social interactions require us to gather, integrate, and act upon, multiple streams of information about others and our surroundings. In this Element, we discuss how perceptual processes provide us with an accurate account of action-relevant information in social contexts. We overview contemporary theories and research that explores how: (1) individuals perceive others' mental states and actions, (2) individuals perceive affordances for themselves, others, and the dyad, and (3) how social contexts guide our attention to modulate what we perceive. Finally, we review work on the cognitive mechanisms that make joint action possible and discuss their links to perception.
From a motor control perspective, human-to-human object handovers can be described as coordinated joint-actions transferring the power over an object from a passer to a receiver. Although, human-to-human handovers are very reliable in terms of success, it is unclear how both actors plan and execute their actions independently while taking into account the partners behaviour. Here, we measured grip-forces of passer and receiver while handing over an object. In order to study mutual interaction in human-to-human handovers, we measured how changes in relevant features (sensory information available to the passer and receiver’s reaching velocity) in one partner affect grip-force profiles not only at the manipulated side but also at the partner’s side. The data reveals strong effects of sensory manipulations on time-related (duration and release delay) and dynamometric measures (force rates). Variation of reaching velocities had the largest impact on the receiver’s force rates. Furthermore, there are first indications that the vertical object movement is used as an implicit cue to signal the start of the handover in situations where vision is restricted.
Dans nos actions quotidiennes, nous interagissons avec le monde environnant, et bien souvent, nous coordonnons nos actions avec celles des autres pour être plus efficaces. Seulement, dans certaines situations, une interférence apparaît entre les participants, donnant lieu à une coopération inefficace voire délétère. Or, très peu d’études se sont intéressées à ce phénomène, pourtant fréquemment rencontré, par exemple dans les sports collectifs. Ce travail a pour objectif l’analyse de cette interférence, via la construction et l’utilisation de situations collaboratives en réalité virtuelle, lors d’une tâche d’interception de balle. En l’absence de communication verbale, deux individus devaient décider tacitement lequel interceptait la balle, et lequel s’effaçait pour laisser le partenaire réaliser l’interception. Au travers de deux études complémentaires, nous avons étudié l’impact des conditions de la tâche sur la coopération et l’interférence entre les participants, lors d’interceptions réalisées face-à-face ou côte-à-côte. Nos résultats suggèrent tout d’abord que la coordination d'équipe émerge de l'interaction directe entre les participants durant l’essai. De plus, nous avons observé que si la division de l’espace d’interception est globalement bien définie, il existe cependant une “zone d’incertitude” où de nombreux essais sont manqués, traduisant la difficulté des participants à mettre en place des patterns d’interception efficace dans cette zone. L'interférence qui apparaîssait alors entre eux dépend de la complexité de la tâche (incertitude sur l'action du partenaire, information visuelle disponible, mode d'interception).
The present study investigated to what extent group membership affects an actor's representation of their partner's task in cooperative joint action. Participants performed a joint pick-and-place task in a naturalistic, breakfast-table-like paradigm which allowed the demonstration of varying degrees of cooperation. Participants transported a wooden cup from one end of a table to the other, with one actor moving it to an intermediate position from where their partner transported it to a goal position. Hand and finger movements were recorded via 3D motion tracking to assess actors' cooperative behavior. Before the joint action task was performed, participants were categorized as belonging to the same or to different groups, supposedly based on an assessment of their cognitive processing styles. Results showed that the orientation of the actors' fingers when picking up the cup was affected by its required angle at the goal position. When placing the cup at the intermediate position, most actors adapted the rotation of the cup's handle to the joint action goal, thereby facilitating the partner's subsequent movement. Male actors demonstrated such cooperative behavior only when performing the task together with an ingroup partner, while female actors demonstrated cooperative behavior irrespective of social categorization. These results suggest that actors tend to represent a partner's end-state comfort and integrate it into their own movement planning in cooperative joint action. However, social factors like group membership may modulate this tendency.
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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
In human joint action, visual attention is required to monitor the actions of others, but also for controlling and planning one's own actions. In a 'cup-clinking' scenario we investigated how people divide their attention between both tasks. Our participants first watched an actor and than performed their own task in the same way as the actor or in a pre-defined different (complementary) way. Using an eye-tracker, we found that people closely follow the action of the actor until they are given a signal to start their own movement. Interestingly, in the complementary condition our participants inspected the cup of the actor at the position they were going to grab their own cup. This result may merely reflect movement preparation. We go one step further and propose that visual information is extracted and transformed into parameters for the upcoming movement. Thus, attention may facilitate movement preparation while simultaneously the joint action partner is monitored.
The presented work focuses on investigating the influence of different hand-over timing strategies on the fluency and efficiency of a human-robot team in an assembly task. To this aim, four different timing strategies were experimentally evaluated: (I) a fixed time interval between two handovers, (II) a reactive behavior, where the robot is triggered by the human, (III) fixed time intervals depending on the current component, and (IV) a predictive assembly duration estimation algorithm. During the experiment, the time-to-completion of the task and the waiting times for human and robot were measured as reciprocal indication for the efficiency and respectively the fluency of the team. The results indicate that the efficiency of the human-robot team is significantly increased using a predictive timing strategy, because it enables the robot to provide the needed component just-in-time. The decrease in waiting times for the human worker leads to improved fluency of the collaboration. In addition, the predictive strategy enables the robot to perform preliminary tasks if no assistance is needed. Therefore, a nearly full usage of both partners' capacities can be reached.
This study examines how human movements are adapted when interacting with another person. It is also considered that the sequence of the movement can be to the choice of both actors. Different parameters of pick-and-place movements are compared in situations in which one person is moving alone or conjointly with a partner while the sequence of the task was predefined or made up by the participant. A schematic framework for the interpretation of increased effort is provided. Results are discussed in relation to improvements for human-robot-interaction.
We explore how students allocate their study time—both with regard to which materials they select to study and how long they study them. A literature review revealed multiple outcomes that any theory of study-time allocation will need to explain: students often spend more time studying difficult to learn items (vs. less difficult ones), unless (a) little time is available for study or (b) the reward for correct recall is higher for the less difficult items. In the latter contexts, this shift to focusing on easier items is an effective strategy, and notably, students do not always make this shift when doing so would be effective. To account for these and other effects, we introduce the agenda-based-regulation (ABR) framework, which assumes that students use agendas to allocate time to efficiently achieve their goals. We compare the ABR framework to other theories of study-time allocation and discuss avenues for future research.
When two or more people coordinate their actions in space and time to produce a joint outcome, they perform a joint action. The perceptual, cognitive, and motor processes that enable individuals to coordinate their actions with others have been receiving increasing attention during the last decade, complementing earlier work on shared intentionality and discourse. This chapter reviews current theoretical concepts and empirical findings in order to provide a structured overview of the state of the art in joint action research. We distinguish between planned and emergent coordination. In planned coordination, agents' behavior is driven by representations that specify the desired outcomes of joint action and the agent's own part in achieving these outcomes. In emergent coordination, coordinated behavior occurs due to perception–action couplings that make multiple individuals act in similar ways, independently of joint plans. We review evidence for the two types of coordination and discuss potential synergies between them.
Human interaction partners tend to synchronize their movements during repetitive actions such as walking. Research of inter-human coordination in purely rhythmic action tasks reveals that the observed patterns of interaction are dominated by synchronization effects. Initiated by our finding that human dyads synchronize their arm movements even in a goal-directed action task, we present a step-wise approach to a model of inter-human movement coordination. In an experiment, the hand trajectories of ten human dyads are recorded. Governed by a dynamical process of phase synchronization, the participants establish in-phase as well as anti-phase relations. The emerging relations are successfully reproduced by the attractor dynamics of coupled phase oscillators inspired by the Kuramoto model. Three different methods on transforming the motion trajectories into instantaneous phases are investigated and their influence on the model fit to the experimental data is evaluated. System identification technique allows us to estimate the model parameters, which are the coupling strength and the frequency detuning among the dyad. The stability properties of the identified model match the relations observed in the experimental data. In short, our model predicts the dynamics of inter-human movement coordination. It can directly be implemented to enrich human-robot interaction.
When we have to physically interact with a robot, the benchmark for natural and efficient performance is our experience of daily interactions with other humans. This goal is still far despite significant advances in human-robot interaction. While considerable progress is made in various areas ranging from improving the hardware over safety measures to better sensor systems, the research on basic mechanisms of interaction and its technical implementation is still in its infancy. In the following, we give an overview of our own work aiming at improving human-robot interaction and joint action. When humans jointly collaborate to achieve a common goal, the actions of each partner need to be properly coordinated to assure a smooth and efficient workflow. This includes timing of the actions, but also, in the case of physical interaction, the spatial coordination. We thus first investigated how a simple physical interaction, a hand-over task between two humans without verbal communication, is achieved. Our results with a human as receiver and both humans and robots as delivering agent show that both the position and the kinematics of the partner's movement are used to increase the confidence in predicting hand-over in time and space. These results underline that for successful joint action the robot must act predictably for the human partner. However, in a more realistic scenario, robot and human constitute a dynamic system with each agent predicting and reacting to the actions and intentions of the other. We therefore investigated and implemented an assembly task where the robot acts as assistant for the human. Using a Bayesian estimation framework, the robot predicts assembly duration in order to deliver the next part just in time.
In recent years, researchers have made many new discoveries in the field of social interaction and have attempted to understand the mechanisms of interpersonal coordination. This research is marked by two streams: On the one hand, there are attempts to explain spontaneous, incidental interpersonal coordination in terms of the behavioral dynamics perspective, and on the other, to explain instructed, intentional interpersonal coordination in terms of joint action. Other paradigms fall somewhere between incidental and intentional coordination, e.g. task sharing paradigms. The present study has two major objectives. First, we wanted to explore to what extent a dyadic scenario for bimanual coordination mimics typical signatures of bimanual coordination performance as obtained in the classical individual scenario. Second, if such mimicking is obtained, we wanted to investigate the kind of information on which the coordination between the two individuals may be grounded. To do so, we used a bimanual aiming task, which enabled us to assess measurements of two levels of coordination: global (operating over longer periods of time) and local (operating on each particular trial). In Experiment 1, this task was performed in an individual and in a dyadic setting. In the dyadic scenario, we observed strong global coordination and weak local coordination. In Experiment 2, we replicated this pattern and showed that different kinds of feedback had no impact on interpersonal coordination. Based on these findings, we propose that interpersonal coordination in a non-rhythmic choice response task is based on weak interpersonal coordination.
Social facilitation, the theory, originated out of the field of experimental social psychology as a means of explaining individual's behavior in social situations. Social facilitation is described as enhancing one's dominant response simply by being in the presence of others. Social facilitation, while not widely applied to consumer behavior, holds hope of becoming an interesting and useful tool in attempting to predict consumer behavior, specifically, behavior in particular buying situations. This paper examines social facilitation theory, where the presence of others is central, as a good predictor of consumer behavior in shopping situations, like: store crowding and waiting in line. Thus, the following critical areas of social facilitation are explored: mere presence of others, distraction-conflict, evaluation apprehension, and crowding. Before these areas can be applied, it is necessary to investigate the origin of social facilitation, the theory.
This article reviews the origins and development of social facilitation theory beginning with N. Triplett's (1898) early work during the late 1800s. Early studies of the phenomenon focused on individual performance enhancement when others were present. Performance impairments were observed but not explained until R. B. Zajonc's (1965) integration of previous work that provided a coherent explanation for earlier inconsistencies. Beginning with his drive theory, the authors describe various social, physiological, behavioral, and cognitive explanations for social facilitation that have been advanced over the years and discuss their origins in some of the earliest social psychological research. Finally, the authors present their own framework for examining social facilitation phenomena and highlight problems and opportunities for advancing the theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Trajectory and kinematics of drawing movements are mutually constrained by functional relationships that reduce the degrees of freedom of the hand-arm system. Previous investigations of these relationships are extended here by considering their development in children between 5 and 12 years of age. Performances in a simple motor task--the continuous tracing of elliptic trajectories--demonstrate that both the phenomenon of isochrony (increase of the average movement velocity with the linear extent of the trajectory) and the so-called two-thirds power law (relation between tangential velocity and curvature) are qualitatively present already at the age of 5. The quantitative aspects of these regularities evolve with age, however, and steady-state adult performance is not attained even by the oldest children. The power-law formalism developed in previous reports is generalized to encompass these developmental aspects of the control of movement.
By watching each other's lower oscillating leg, 2 seated Ss kept a common tempo and a particular phase relation of either 0 degrees (symmetric mode) or 180 degrees (alternate mode). This study investigated the differential stability of the 2 phase modes. In Experiment 1, in which Ss were instructed to remain in the initial phase mode, the alternate phase mode was found to be less stable as the frequency of oscillation increased. In addition, analysis of the nonsteady state cycles revealed evidence of a switching to the symmetric phase mode for the initial alternate phase mode trials. In Experiments 2 and 3, Ss were instructed to remain at a noninitial phase angle if it was found to be more comfortable. The transition observed between the 2 phase modes satisfies the criteria of a physical bifurcation--hysteresis, critical fluctuations, and divergence--and is consonant with previous findings on transitions in limb coordination within a person.
The underlying processes in movement organization and control were studied by varying the conditions under which arm movements were made. The three-dimensional movement trajectories of the following conditions were contrasted: pointing to a target with the index finger versus grasping a disk the same size as the target, grasping a fragile object versus a soft resilient object, and grasping a disk either to throw into a large box or place into a tight fitting well. Results snowed that the arm trajectories, as represented by the resultant velocity profile of the wrist, varied considerably in their shape with the main factor being when peak velocity was reached as a function of the total duration of the movement. It appeared that when task demands required greater precision, the main deceleration phase of the trajectory was increased in duration. These results do not support a movement production mechanism that has access to an abstract representation of a base velocity profile and that creates trajectories by a simple scaling procedure in the temporal domain. Rather, the results support a view of movement production as relatively specific to the past experience of the performer and the constraints of the task.
Reports a meta-analysis of the effects of the presence of others on human task performance and physiology. In 241 studies involving nearly 24,000 Ss, the presence of others had small effects, accounting for .3% to 3% of the variance in the typical experiment. It is concluded that (a) the presence of others heightens an individual's physiological arousal only if the individual is performing a complex task; (b) the presence of others increases the speed of simple task performance and decreases the speed of complex task performance; (c) the presence of others impairs complex performance accuracy and slightly facilitates simple performance accuracy, although the facilitation is vulnerable to the "file drawer problem" of unreported null results; and (d) social facilitation effects are surprisingly unrelated to the performer's evaluation apprehension. These meta-analytic conclusions are contrasted with conclusions reached by narrative literature reviews, and implications for theories of social facilitation are discussed. A list of the studies analyzed is appended. (51 ref)
Recent empirical studies have implicated the use of the motor system during action observation, imitation and social interaction. In this paper, we explore the computational parallels between the processes that occur in motor control and in action observation, imitation, social interaction and theory of mind. In particular, we examine the extent to which motor commands acting on the body can be equated with communicative signals acting on other people and suggest that computational solutions for motor control may have been extended to the domain of social interaction.
How do we understand the actions of others? According to the direct matching hypothesis, action understanding results from a mechanism that maps an observed action onto motor representations of that action. Although supported by neurophysiological and brain-imaging studies, direct evidence for this hypothesis is sparse. In visually guided actions, task-specific proactive eye movements are crucial for planning and control. Because the eyes are free to move when observing such actions, the direct matching hypothesis predicts that subjects should produce eye movements similar to those produced when they perform the tasks. If an observer analyses action through purely visual means, however, eye movements will be linked reactively to the observed action. Here we show that when subjects observe a block stacking task, the coordination between their gaze and the actor's hand is predictive, rather than reactive, and is highly similar to the gaze-hand coordination when they perform the task themselves. These results indicate that during action observation subjects implement eye motor programs directed by motor representations of manual actions and thus provide strong evidence for the direct matching hypothesis.
A category of stimuli of great importance for primates, humans in particular, is that formed by actions done by other individuals. If we want to survive, we must understand the actions of others. Furthermore, without action understanding, social organization is impossible. In the case of humans, there is another faculty that depends on the observation of others' actions: imitation learning. Unlike most species, we are able to learn by imitation, and this faculty is at the basis of human culture. In this review we present data on a neurophysiological mechanism--the mirror-neuron mechanism--that appears to play a fundamental role in both action understanding and imitation. We describe first the functional properties of mirror neurons in monkeys. We review next the characteristics of the mirror-neuron system in humans. We stress, in particular, those properties specific to the human mirror-neuron system that might explain the human capacity to learn by imitation. We conclude by discussing the relationship between the mirror-neuron system and language.
Previous research has demonstrated that people's movements can become unintentionally coordinated during interpersonal interaction. The current study sought to uncover the degree to which visual and verbal (conversation) interaction constrains and organizes the rhythmic limb movements of coactors. Two experiments were conducted in which pairs of participants completed an interpersonal puzzle task while swinging handheld pendulums with instructions that minimized intentional coordination but facilitated either visual or verbal interaction. Cross-spectral analysis revealed a higher degree of coordination for conditions in which the pairs were visually coupled. In contrast, verbal interaction alone was not found to provide a sufficient medium for unintentional coordination to occur, nor did it enhance the unintentional coordination that emerged during visual interaction. The results raise questions concerning differences between visual and verbal informational linkages during interaction and how these differences may affect interpersonal movement production and its coordination.
Perceiving other people's behaviors activates imitative motor plans in the perceiver, but there is disagreement as to the function of this activation. In contrast to other recent proposals (e.g., that it subserves overt imitation, identification and understanding of actions, or working memory), here it is argued that imitative motor activation feeds back into the perceptual processing of conspecifics' behaviors, generating top-down expectations and predictions of the unfolding action. Furthermore, this account incorporates recent ideas about emulators in the brain-mental simulations that run in parallel to the external events they simulate-to provide a mechanism by which motoric involvement could contribute to perception. Evidence from a variety of literatures is brought to bear to support this account of perceiving human body movement.
Previous research has shown that individuals unintentionally adjust their behavior to others by mimicking others' actions and by synchronizing their actions with others. This study investigated whether individuals form a representation of a coactor's task when the context does not require interpersonal coordination. Pairs of participants performed a reaction time (RT) task alongside each other, responding to 2 different dimensions of the same stimulus. Results showed that each actor's performance was influenced by the other's task. RTs on trials that required a response from both participants were slowed compared with trials that required only a response from 1 actor. Similar results were observed when each participant knew the other's task but could not observe the other's actions. These findings provide evidence that shared task representations are formed in social settings that do not require interpersonal coordination and emerge as a consequence of how a social situation is conceptualized.
Here we report a study of joint-action coordination in transferring objects. Fourteen dyads were asked to repeatedly reposition a cylinder in a shared workspace without using dialogue. Variations in task constraints concerned the size of the two target regions in which the cylinder had to be (re)positioned and the size and weight of the transferred cylinder. Movements of the wrist, index finger and thumb of both actors were recorded by means of a 3D motion-tracking system. Data analyses focused on the interpersonal transfer of lifting-height and movement-speed variations. Whereas the analyses of variance did not reveal any interpersonal transfer effects targeted data comparisons demonstrated that the actor who fetched the cylinder from where the other actor had put it was systematically less surprised by cylinder-weight changes than the actor who was first confronted with such changes. In addition, a moderate, accuracy-constraint independent adaptation to each other's movement speed was found. The current findings suggest that motor resonance plays only a moderate role in collaborative motor control and confirm the independency between sensorimotor and cognitive processing of action-related information.
When individuals act alone, they can internally coordinate the actions at hand. Such coordination is not feasible when individuals act together in a group. The present research examines to what extent groups encounter specific challenges when acting jointly and whether these challenges impede extending planning into the future. Individuals and groups carried out a tracking task that required learning a new anticipatory control strategy. The results show that groups face additional demands that are harder to overcome when planning needs to be extended into the future. Information about others' actions is a necessary condition for groups to effectively learn to extend their plans. Possible mechanisms for exerting and learning anticipatory control are discussed.
This article reviews the origins and development of social facilitation theory beginning with N. Triplett's (1898) early work during the late 1800s. Early studies of the phenomenon focused on individual performance enhancement when others were present. Performance impairments were observed but not explained until R. B. Zajonc's (1965) integration of previous work that provided a coherent explanation for earlier inconsistencies. Beginning with his drive theory, the authors describe various social, physiological, behavioral, and cognitive explanations for social facilitation that have been advanced over the years and discuss their origins in some of the earliest social psychological research. Finally, the authors present their own framework for examining social facilitation phenomena and highlight problems and opportunities for advancing the theory.
A solution is suggested for an old unresolved social psychological problem.
The ability to coordinate our actions with those of others is crucial for our success as individuals and as a species. Progress in understanding the cognitive and neural processes involved in joint action has been slow and sparse, because cognitive neuroscientists have predominantly studied individual minds and brains in isolation. However, in recent years, major advances have been made by investigating perception and action in social context. In this article we outline how studies on joint attention, action observation, task sharing, action coordination and agency contribute to the understanding of the cognitive and neural processes supporting joint action. Several mechanisms are proposed that allow individuals to share representations, to predict actions, and to integrate predicted effects of own and others' actions.
This chapter discusses the progress and problems of distraction–conflict theory. Distraction–conflict theory suggests that attentional conflict might be the key mediator of drive in research settings. This chapter reviews the research and argues that—despite a good deal of corroborating data for some of the major contentions of distraction–conflict theory—attentional mechanisms may offer a more parsimonious account of social facilitation phenomena than does a drive perspective. Distraction–conflict theory can account post hoc for the findings that indicate that evaluative or competitive pressure heightens social facilitation or impairment; mere presence occasionally produces social facilitation in the absence of evaluative or competitive pressure; social loafing can occur on simple well-learned tasks; and hidden audiences produce social facilitation. The attentional emphasis suggests that distraction may have a variety of effects on cognition, attitude change, and social behavior.
The present paper describes a scenario for examining mechanisms of movement coordination in humans and robots. It is assumed
that coordination can best be achieved when behavioral rules that shape movement execution in humans are also considered for
human-robot interaction. Investigating and describing human-human interaction in terms of goal-oriented movement coordination
is considered an important and necessary step for designing and describing human-robot interaction. In the present scenario,
trajectories of hand and finger movements were recorded while two human participants performed a simple construction task
either alone or with a partner. Different parameters of reaching and grasping were measured and compared in situations with
and without workspace overlap. Results showed a strong impact of task demands on coordination behavior; especially the temporal
parameters of movement coordination were affected. Implications for human-robot interaction are discussed.
The speed of execution of complex movements depends on both the local, differential properties of the trajectory and on some of its more global metric parameters. The effects of these global factors were studied in free, writing-like movements with either piece-wise constant, or regularly changing curvature. It is demonstrated that the tangential velocity of the pen's tip is tightly correlated, through a power function, with the total linear extent of the trajectory (perimeter). Thus, a strong tendency exists to keep the execution time of these complex trajectories independent of the movement size (isochrony). Furthermore, it is shown that the average tangential velocity over identifiable segments of the trajectory also depends on the corresponding average curvature. The implications of these results vis-à-vis the central representation and planning of movements are discussed.
In this article we provide a unifying neural hypothesis on how individuals understand the actions and emotions of others. Our main claim is that the fundamental mechanism at the basis of the experiential understanding of others' actions is the activation of the mirror neuron system. A similar mechanism, but involving the activation of viscero-motor centers, underlies the experiential understanding of the emotions of others.
The aim of the present study is to elucidate the influence of context on the kinematics of the reach-to-grasp movement. In particular, we consider two basic modes of social cognition, namely cooperation and competition. In two experiments kinematics of the very same action - reaching-to-grasp a wooden block - were analyzed in two different contexts provided by a cooperative task and competitive task. For the 'cooperation' tasks two participants were required to reach and grasp their respective objects and to cooperate to join the two objects in specific configurations in the middle of the working surface. For the 'competition' tasks, the two participants had to compete to place their own object first in the middle of the working surface. Results revealed specific kinematic patterns for cooperation and competition which were distinct from similar actions performed by each participant in isolation. Further, during the cooperation tasks, a high level of correlation between key kinematical parameters of the two participants was found. In accordance with evidence from neuroimaging, developmental and social psychology our results suggest the existence of motor patterns which reflect the intention to act in a social context.
The present study examines how humans adapt their movements when interacting with another person. Different parameters of pick-and-place movements of the same person are compared in situations where the person works alone (intrapersonal coordination) and when the person is working with a partner (interpersonal coordination). Results show an overall increase in movement speed during the interpersonal condition and a reduced relative movement onset compared to the intrapersonal condition. The findings are discussed with respect to implications for the design of adaptive robots with the aim to improve human-robot interaction.
human-human and human-robot interaction
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human-human and human-robot interaction. Lecture
Notes in Computer Science, 4799, 143– 154.