Making oneself predictable: Reduced temporal variability facilitates joint action coordination

Cordula Vesper*, Robrecht P.R.D. Van Der Wel, Günther Knoblich, Natalie Sebanz

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

Performing joint actions often requires precise temporal coordination of individual actions. The present study investigated how people coordinate their actions at discrete points in time when continuous or rhythmic information about others' actions is not available. In particular, we tested the hypothesis that making oneself predictable is used as a coordination strategy. Pairs of participants were instructed to coordinate key presses in a two-choice reaction time task, either responding in synchrony (Experiments 1 and 2) or in close temporal succession (Experiment 3). Across all experiments, we found that coactors reduced the variability of their actions in the joint context compared with the same task performed individually. Correlation analyses indicated that the less variable the actions were, the better was interpersonal coordination. The relation between reduced variability and improved coordination performance was not observed when pairs of participants performed independent tasks next to each other without intending to coordinate. These findings support the claim that reducing variability is used as a coordination strategy to achieve predictability. Identifying coordination strategies contributes to the understanding of the mechanisms involved in real-time coordination.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)517-530
Number of pages14
JournalExperimental Brain Research
Volume211
Issue number3-4
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2011
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Coordination strategy
  • Joint action
  • Predictability
  • Temporal coordination

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