Joint action coordination in expert-novice pairs: Can experts predict novices’ suboptimal timing?

Thomas Wolf*, Natalie Sebanz, Günther Knoblich

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

Previous research has established that skilled joint action partners use predictive models to achieve temporal coordination, for instance, when playing a music duet. But how do joint action partners with different skill levels achieve coordination? Can experts predict the suboptimal timing of novices? What kind of information allows them to predict novices’ timing? To address these questions, we asked skilled pianists to perform duets with piano novices. We varied whether, prior to performing duets, experts were familiar with novices’ performances of their individual parts of the duets and whether experts had access to the musical scores including the novices’ part of the duet. Familiarity with the score led to better coordination when the score implied a difficult passage. Familiarity with novices’ performances led to better joint action coordination for the remaining parts of the duet. Together, the results indicate that experts are surprisingly flexible in predicting novices’ suboptimal timing.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)103-108
Number of pages6
JournalCognition
Volume178
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2018

Keywords

  • Expertise
  • Joint action
  • Music ensembles
  • Prediction
  • Sensorimotor synchronization
  • Temporal coordination

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