Joint action – behavioural mechanisms
Successful joint activities such as rowing require a smooth collaboration between the mechanisms of perception, action, and cognition. The EU-funded 'Cognitive and neural representations of action in temporally coordinated behaviour' (ACTION COORDINATION) project will investigate if such actions are temporally activated. Furthermore, the extent of an individual's cognitive and neural involvement in their partner's actions during such coordinated activities will also be assessed.Project researchers carried out three studies during the project period involving temporally coordinated action. In the first study, pairs of experienced pianists performed musical duets and their brain activity was monitored using electroencephalography (EEG). During the performance, incorrect pitches were introduced to observe changes in their brain activity and effect on performance. Results revealed that besides monitoring individual and partner's performances, incorrect pitches affecting their shared goal evoked stronger brain responses. This suggests that the brain monitors individual and group performance but considers shared goals in coordinated actions more significant than individual roles in a joint action. The second study recruited 96 novices in piano playing to learn and perform musical duets. Experiments were conducted to assess their performance while listening to the duet or individual part of their performance. Interestingly, representations of the shared goal produced fewer errors than focussing on the individual goal. Another study focussed on deciphering how individuals in a joint action represent individual and group actions and maintain a distinction between them. Using EEG, brain activity was recorded in 24 pairs of participants who had to coordinate button presses to produce single tones. Interestingly, brain responses were reduced only when partners successfully produced single tones. This suggests that people use information about their timing on a particular joint action to differentiate between their own and group contributions.Project activities have considerably enhanced our knowledge about how we perform joint actions using cognitive and neural mechanisms. Better understanding of interpersonal coordination, can improve our productivity. Moreover, this will enable better designing of man-machine interfaces and robots.
Keywords
Coordinated action, artificial intelligence, man-machine interface, neural, cognition, behaviour, temporal, electroencephalography, perception