Embodied perspective-taking enhances interpersonal synchronization. A body-swap study.
Description
SUMMARY of the study: "Humans exhibit a strong tendency to synchronize movements with each other, with visual perspective potentially playing a role in this interpersonal coordination. By manipulating the visual scenes in virtual reality (VR) for 20 pairs of participants (N = 40) engaged in a joint fingertapping task, we examined the effects of different visual perspectives (1st and 2nd person) on their coordination dynamics. We hypothesized that perceiving the partner's movements from their 1st person perspective would enhance interpersonal synchronization, potentially mediated by the embodiment of the partner's hand. While dyadic entrainment was prevalent in all coupled conditions, we observed significant differences in attractor dynamics across perspective levels. Specifically, participants in 1st person coupling could not maintain decoupled trajectories as effectively as those in 2nd person coupling. Our findings suggest that visual perspective influences coordination dynamics in dyadic interactions, engaging errorcorrection mechanisms in individual brains as they integrate the partner's hand in their body representation. Complementary analysis of questionnaires regarding the subjective experience of embodiment further supports our interpretation. Our results have the potential to inform the development of applications for motor training and rehabilitation, to enhance interpersonal coordination between patients and therapists." The 'Data' folder contains datasets at different stages of processing. In order: - onsets relative to metronomes and finger-taps (.mat files) - recurrence score timeseries (.mat files) - table of dyadic (JRQA) and individual (sense of ownership and agency, empathy, synchronization consistency) measures, ready for statistical analyses.
Files
Steps to reproduce
From the 'Scripts' folder, use .m scripts to reproduce the data processing and analyses. The main scripts output .xlsx files used to fit the models in .R. From the 'Scripts' folder, use .R scripts to reproduce statistical models fitting. Separate scripts are used for dyadic (JRQA) and individual (sense of ownership and agency, empathy, synchronization consistency) measures. These scripts import .xslx files contained in 'Data' folder. The 'functions_matlab' folder contains functions used in phase of processing and analysis in Matlab.