Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Complexity matching—converging temporal correlations measured by correlating the slopes of power spectra—is a new measure of coordination based on information exchange between complex networks. To date, studies have focused on the dyadic case, but complexity matching may generalize to interacting complex networks in the left and right hemispheres of a single brain. We examined complexity matching in a perceptual-motor task between individuals and dyads. Participants alternated hitting targets in a Fitts-like task with the left and right hands of one individual, or analogously between two people. Response coupling was manipulated by making targets drift randomly (decoupled) or contingently (coupled). Results showed long-range correlations in time series of inter-response intervals exhibited complexity matching for both individuals and dyads, but only when responses were coupled via contingent drift. We conclude that complexity matching observed between individuals can similarly occur within one individual, suggesting a general principle of interaction at work.