Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Coherent social coordination requires aligning not only actions in the moment but also goals over time. Yet it remains unclear how joint goals are selected when multiple options unfold sequentially, and how shared information—prior goals maintained in working memory versus newly available goals captured by perception—guides coordination. We examine how the temporal structure of interaction shapes goal selection. Across three experiments, pairs of participants performed Pac-Man–like coordination tasks in which an old goal persisted while a new goal appeared. When coordination required two players to align synchronically in real time, dyads converged on newly appearing goals. When coordination required players to take turns controlling a single agent, dyads persisted with old goals. Critically, manipulating the turn-taking interval revealed a graded transition: longer intervals strengthened bias toward the old goal, whereas shorter intervals eliminated this bias. Together, these findings show that joint coordination flexibly recruits perception- and memory-based mechanisms over time.