EVALUATING THE DYNAMICS OF UNINTENDED INTERPERSONAL COORDINATION

Past research has shown that interpersonal interactions are characteri zed by a tacit coordination of motor movements of the participants and has suggested that the emergent. synchrony might be explained by a co upled oscillator dynamic. This study investigates whether unintended b etween-person coordination can be demonstrated in a laboratory task th at will allow an evaluation of whether such dynamical processes are in volved. Ten pairs of participants performed a simple rhythmic task in which they had visual information about each other's movements but had no goal to coordinate. A cross-spectral analysis of the movements rev ealed higher coherence and a distribution of relative phase angles tha t was dominated by values near 0 degrees and 180 degrees. These result s support the hypothesis that dynamical organizing principles are invo lved in natural interpersonal synchrony.