Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Previous research has revealed that the behavioral dynamics of joint-action can naturally emerge from the physical and informational constraints that define a shared task-goal. The emergence of complementary actions or functional differences in control also appear to be a natural part of such behavior, and are often an inherent aspect of robust and highly flexible jointaction performance. The aim of the current study was to explore these latter aspects of joint-action behavior. More specifically, we examined the interpersonal coordination and control that emerged between two individuals performing a virtual labyrinth ball-control game. Key manipulations involved whether control was symmetrical (i.e. both individuals had full control of the board tilt), asymmetrical (i.e. one with control of the x-axis of tilt and the other with control of the y-axis of tilt), or unbalanced (i.e. one joystick had full control of the y-axis of tilt, but only ¬Ω the gain control of the x-axis of tilt, and vice versa). Data on a solo individual two-handed version of the task was also collected for comparison purposes. Our results revealed that the patterns of synergistic coordination that emerged were the same for pairs and individuals, and that both pairs and individuals maintain task success by mutually adapting the coordination and control dynamics across the different task manipulations