Collaborative Research: Informational Constraints on Interpersonal Coordination

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When two people converse both are almost always in motion. As a speaker's posture shifts, the listener's does too, and the two together become coordinated with the speaker's speech rhythms. We don't always notice but this kind of social coordination happens all the time. People coordinate the movements of their bodies, even in the awkward social situation of a laboratory experiment. Movements are subtly and unintentionally synchronized as in an unconscious dance. This dance is important and is associated with mental health. It breaks down with psychological dysfunctions such as schizophrenia, autism and even marital dissatisfaction. Thus a fundamental science of social synchronization would broadly impact our understanding of social concerns and further advance the possibilities for therapy.With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Richard Schmidt and Dr. Carol Fowler will advance our understanding of the perceptual and cognitive processes that support social interactions, the processes that allow synchronization of movements in natural interactions. Past research by these scientists and others suggests general dynamical principles that underlie interpersonal coordination. These previous studies established that talking with another person or seeing the other person's movements provide the coupling mediums, the bases for coordination. The funded research will investigate how the mind and body interact to organize this coordination. The new experiments put people together to solve problems and then track how the shared problem solving-the degree of psychological coordination-contributes to movement coordination. Subtle movements to maintain posture as well as overt rhythmic movements are recorded for analysis using modern mathematical tools of nonlinear dynamics. Different experiments contrast movements of limbs, torso, and other parts of the body, competitive vs. cooperative tasks, natural vs. rhythmic speaking, and how much can be seen of another's person's movements.