Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Interpersonal coordination in joint action is often assumed to rely on stable, predefined leader–follower roles. However, in complex embodied interactions such as partner dance, coordination and role organization may be dynamically reconfigured depending on movement context. This study examined how physical connection, partner experience, and role-related asymmetry shape interpersonal coordination in expert Latin American dance. Eight expert dance pairs performed a standardized rumba sequence under connected and non-connected conditions with familiar and unfamiliar partners. Motion capture data were analyzed using C2RQA, an extended cross-recurrence quantification method that captures directional coupling between movement time series, applied to temporally segmented movement phases. Coordination strength, temporal structure, complexity, and role-related asymmetry were quantified. Results showed that coordination was sparse and intermittent—rather than continuously sustained—and varied systematically across movement phases. The effects of physical connection and partner experience were context-dependent, and leader–follower asymmetry shifted across phases rather than remaining fixed. These findings highlight dynamic, context-sensitive reorganization of coordination and roles in expert joint action, suggesting that skilled partnered movement relies on flexible perception-action coupling rather than fixed role execution.