Om samarbejde i efterårsferien

Flere af de computerbaserede aktiviteter i efterårsferien var udviklet af Cordula Vesper, som er adjunkt i kognitionsvidenskab og kognitiv semiotik ved Aarhus Universitet. Her fortæller hun om sine samarbejdsstudier på Steno Museet

Crossmodal correspondences as common ground for joint action

When performing joint actions, people rely on common ground - shared information that provides the required basis for mutual understanding. Common ground can be based on people's interaction history or on knowledge and expectations people share, e.g., because they belong to the same culture or social class. Here, we suggest that people rely on yet another form of common ground, one that originates in their similarities in multisensory processing. Specifically, we focus on 'crossmodal correspondences' - nonarbitrary associations that people make between stimulus features in different sensory modalities, e.g., between stimuli in the auditory and the visual modality such as high-pitched sounds and small objects. Going beyond previous research that focused on investigating crossmodal correspondences in individuals, we propose that people can use these correspondences for communicating and coordinating with others. Initial support for our proposal comes from a communication game played in a public space (an art gallery) by pairs of visitors. We observed that pairs created nonverbal communication systems by spontaneously relying on 'crossmodal common ground'. Based on these results, we conclude that crossmodal correspondences not only occur within individuals but that they can also be actively used in joint action to facilitate the coordination between individuals. Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Making oneself predictable: reduced temporal variability facilitates joint action coordination

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

Understanding distal goals from proximal communicative actions

Can people interpret communicative action modulations in terms of the actor’s distal goal? We investigated situations in which the proximal goal of an action (i.e., the movement endpoint) does not overlap with its distal goal (i.e., a final location beyond the movement endpoint). Participants were presented with animations of an object being moved at different velocities towards a designated endpoint. The distal goal, however, was for the object to be moved past this endpoint, to one of two occluded final locations. Participants were asked to select the location which they considered the likely distal goal of the action. As predicted, participants detected differences in movement velocity and, based on these differences, systematically mapped the movements to the two distal goal locations. These findings extend previous research on sensorimotor communication by demonstrating that communicative action modulations are not restricted to proximal goals but can also contain information about distal goals

Monitoring individual and joint action outcomes in duet music performance

Contains fulltext : 116571-OA.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)We investigated whether people monitor the outcomes of their own and their partners 'individual actions as well as the outcome of their combined actions when performing joint actions together. Pairs of pianists memorized both parts of a piano duet. Each pianist then performed one part while their partner performed the other; EEG was recorded from both. Auditory outcomes (pitches) associated with keystrokes produced by the pianists were occasionally altered in a way that either did or did not affect the joint auditory outcome (i.e., the harmony of a chord produced by the two pianists 'combined pitches). Altered auditory outcomes elicited a feedback-related negativity whether they occurred in the pianist's own part or the partner's part, and whether they affected individual or joint action outcomes. Altered auditory outcomes also elicited a P300 whose amplitude was larger when the alteration affected the joint outcome compared with individual outcomes and when the alteration affected the pianist's own part compared with the partner's part. Thus, musicians engaged in joint actions monitor their own and their partner's actions as well as their combined action outcomes, while at the same time maintaining a distinction between their own and others' actions and between individual and joint outcomes.13 p

Understanding distal goals from proximal communicative actions

Can people interpret communicative action modulations in terms of the actor’s distal goal? We investigated situations in which the proximal goal of an action (i.e., the movement endpoint) does not overlap with its distal goal (i.e., a final location beyond the movement endpoint). Participants were presented with animations of an object being moved at different velocities towards a designated endpoint. The distal goal, however, was for the object to be moved past this endpoint, to one of two occluded final locations. Participants were asked to select the location which they considered the likely distal goal of the action. As predicted, participants detected differences in movement velocity and, based on these differences, systematically mapped the movements to the two distal goal locations. These findings extend previous research on sensorimotor communication by demonstrating that communicative action modulations are not restricted to proximal goals but can also contain information about distal goals