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Joint action goals reduce visuomotor interference effects from a partner's incongruent actions.

ABSTRACT: Joint actions often require agents to track others' actions while planning and executing physically incongruent actions of their own. Previous research has indicated that this can lead to visuomotor interference effects when it occurs outside of joint action. How is this avoided or overcome in joint actions? We hypothesized that when joint action partners represent their actions as interrelated components of a plan to bring about a joint action goal, each partner's movements need not be represented in relation to distinct, incongruent proximal goals. Instead they can be represented in relation to a single proximal goal - especially if the movements are, or appear to be, mechanically linked to a more distal joint action goal. To test this, we implemented a paradigm in which participants produced finger movements that were either congruent or incongruent with those of a virtual partner, and either with or without a joint action goal (the joint flipping of a switch, which turned on two light bulbs). Our findings provide partial support for the hypothesis that visuomotor interference effects can be reduced when two physically incongruent actions are represented as mechanically interdependent contributions to a joint action goal.

SUBMITTER: Clarke S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6817939 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Joint action goals reduce visuomotor interference effects from a partner's incongruent actions.

Clarke Sam S McEllin Luke L Francová Anna A Székely Marcell M Butterfill Stephen A SA Michael John J

Scientific reports 20191028 1

Joint actions often require agents to track others' actions while planning and executing physically incongruent actions of their own. Previous research has indicated that this can lead to visuomotor interference effects when it occurs outside of joint action. How is this avoided or overcome in joint actions? We hypothesized that when joint action partners represent their actions as interrelated components of a plan to bring about a joint action goal, each partner's movements need not be represen ...[more]

PMID: 31659223

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Project description:Motor learning studies demonstrate that an individual's natural motor variability predicts the rate at which she learns a motor task. Individuals exhibiting higher variability learn motor tasks faster, presumably because variability fosters exploration of a wider space of motor parameters. However, it is unclear how individuals regulate variability while learning a motor task together with a partner who perturbs their movements. In the current study, we investigated whether and how variability affects performance and learning in such joint actions. Participants learned to jointly perform a sequence of movements with a confederate who was either highly variable or less variable in her movements. A haptic coupling between the actors led to translation of partner's movement variability into a force perturbation. We tested how the variability and predictability of force perturbations coming from a partner foster or hamper individual and joint performance. In experiment 1, the confederate produced more or less variable range of force perturbations that occurred in an unpredictable order. In experiment 2, the confederate produced more or less variable force perturbations in a predictable order. In experiment 3, the confederate produced more or less variable force perturbations in which the magnitude of force delivered was predictable whereas the direction of the force was unpredictable. We analysed individual performance, measured as movement accuracy and joint performance, measured as interpersonal asynchrony. Results indicated that in all three experiments, participants successfully regulated the variability of their own movements. However, individual performance was worse when partner produced highly variable force perturbations in an unpredictable order. Interestingly, predictability of force perturbations offset the detrimental effects of variability on individual performance. Furthermore, participants in the high variability condition achieved higher flexibility and resilience for a wide range of force perturbations, when the partner produced predictable movements. Participants improved their joint performance with a highly variable partner only when the partner produced partially predictable movements. Our results indicate that individuals involved in a joint action selectively rely on either their own or their partner's variability (or both) for benefitting individual and joint action performance, depending on the predictability of the partner' movements.

Dataset Information

Joint action goals reduce visuomotor interference effects from a partner's incongruent actions.

Publications

Joint action goals reduce visuomotor interference effects from a partner's incongruent actions.

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