How do musicians playing in an ensemble coordinate their actions? It has been proposed that action coordination relies on actors predicting the actions of their co-actors. Action predictions are derived from actors simulating the concurrent actions of their co-actors, and these simulations are then used to facilitate anticipatory motor planning and coordination. Recent theory suggests that the actor’s own motor system generates these simulations and, therefore, action predictions are based on how the actors would themselves perform these actions. If this is the case, then there should be a better predicted-action/actual-action match when actors coordinate actions with co-actors closely matching their own action patterns; there would be a perfect match when actors coordinate actions with themselves. We plan to employ a self/other synchronisation paradigm where participants are required to synchronise a button press with animation (reconstructed from motion capture data) of themselves or another person performing a clapping task. Evidence suggests that clapping is unique to an individual in terms of movement patterns and preferred tempo. If action simulation is used for online action coordination, then we will expect to find more accurate synchronisation in the “self” condition. Furthermore, we can disrupt participants’ ability to generate action simulations by requiring them to synchronise with biologically impossible movements (backwards clapping animations), and this should remove any self/other synchronisation advantage. We will also control for the possibility that the self-synchronisation advantage can be explained by a better match in preferred clapping/tapping tempo, by employing a pacing signal for the clapping task.
Authors: Lincoln J Colling and William F Thompson
Event: SF08: Speed Papers