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Leader-Follower Dynamics Anisotropic Coupling and Influence in Social Coordination

abstract: The current work investigated the emergence of leader-follower roles during social motor coordination. Previous research has presumed a leader during coordination assumes a spatiotemporally advanced position (e.g., relative phase lead). While intuitive, this definition discounts what role-taking implies. Leading and following is defined as one person (or limb) having a larger influence on the motor state changes of another; the coupling is asymmetric. Three experiments demonstrated asymmetric coupling effects emerge when task or biomechanical asymmetries are imputed between actors. Participants coordinated in-phase (ะค =0o) swinging of handheld pendulums, which differed in their uncoupled eigenfrequencies (frequency detuning). Coupling effects were recovered through phase-amplitude modeling. Experiment 1 examined leader-follower coupling during a bidirectional task. Experiment 2 employed an additional coupling asymmetry by assigning an explicit leader and follower. Both experiment 1 and 2 demonstrated asymmetric coupling effects with increased detuning. In experiment 2, though, the explicit follower exhibited a phase lead in nearly all conditions. These results confirm that coupling direction was not determined strictly by relative phasing. A third experiment examined the question raised by the previous two, which is how could someone follow from ahead (i.e., phase lead in experiment 2). This was tested using a combination of frequency detuning and amplitude asymmetry requirements (e.g., 1:1 or 1:2 & 2:1). Results demonstrated larger amplitude movements drove the coupling towards the person with the smaller amplitude; small amplitude movements exhibited a phase lead, despite being a follower in coupling terms. These results suggest leader-follower coupling is a general property of social motor coordination. Predicting when such coupling effects occur is emphasized by the stability reducing effects of coordinating asymmetric components. Generally, the implication is role-taking is an emergent strategy of dividing up coordination stabilizing efforts unequally between actors (or limbs). / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Psychology 2015

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:asu.edu/item:34755
Date January 2015
ContributorsFine, Justin Michael (Author), Amazeen, Eric L. (Advisor), Amazeen, Polemnia G. (Committee member), Brewer, Gene (Committee member), Santello, Marco (Committee member), Arizona State University (Publisher)
Source SetsArizona State University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeDoctoral Dissertation
Format101 pages
Rightshttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/, All Rights Reserved

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