Abstract
Observing another human’s actions influences action planning, but what about merely anticipating them? In joint action settings where a partner’s subsequent actions are a consequence of one’s own actions, such contingent partner reactions can be regarded as action effects. Therefore, just like automatic effects they might facilitate those of a person’s actions that overlap with them in relevant features. In Experiments 1 and 2, the spatial compatibility of contingent partner reactions was manipulated and compared with the influence of automatic effects. Experiment 1 used a simplistic scenario in which lateral keypress actions by the subject were responded to by mouse movements of a partner producing spatially compatible or incompatible visual effects. Experiment 2 transferred the paradigm to a more complex task in which subjects manually relocated virtual objects on a multi-touch display, and these or other objects were subsequently manipulated by the partner. In Experiment 1, compatible partner reactions speeded up subjects’ preceding actions, whereas in Experiment 2 the influence was not statistically reliable. To test whether influences of partner reaction compatibility could be found in such naturalistic settings at all, Experiment 3 also used a multi-touch setting but varied temporal instead of spatial compatibility, which has several methodological advantages. This time, a compatibility effect emerged in subjects’ movement initiation times, whereas contrast effects were found for movement durations. These findings indicate that the principles of ideomotor action control can be extended to joint action settings. At the same time, they also emphasize the importance of task features in determining whether our own behaviour is influenced by anticipations of another person’s reactions.
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Notes
The relative spatial positioning of the participants differed between the experiments (next to each other vs. opposite sides). This resulted from the different affordances posed by the technologies (standard computer monitor vs. multi-touch table) and thus was mainly due to practical considerations. However, note that whereas the position of the participants’ bodies differed, the position and movement direction of their spatial indicator (i.e. mouse cursor in Experiment 1 and index finger in Experiment 2) were identical.
Note that in the present multi-touch setup, the virtual objects lacked any haptic boundaries and thus did not pose clear restrictions on subjects’ movement amplitudes. In consequence, subjects did not slow down when approaching the end of the object, but extended their swipe gesture way beyond its boundary. Therefore, any speed changes within the measured area were fairly monotonic.
A previous study examining the temporal compatibility of action effects (Kunde, 2003) analysed the data in a different way, by computing the interaction of action duration and effect duration. This procedure was not adopted in Experiment 3 to make the analysis procedure consistent with that used in Experiments 1 and 2. However, to facilitate the comparison with Kunde’s study, the data were re-analysed accordingly: initiation times from compatible and incompatible blocks were collapsed across the two choice conditions and a repeated measures ANOVA entered with the factors action duration and CPR duration. There was a main effect of action duration, F(1,23) = 163.576, p < 0.001, η 2p = 0.877, and an interaction with CPR duration, F(1,23) = 6.753, p = 0.016, η 2p = 0.227. Fast actions were initiated more quickly than slow actions, and compatible mappings (i.e. fast actions being followed by fast CPR and slow movements by slow CPR) led to shorter initiation times than incompatible mappings. However, the main effect of CPR duration was absent, F < 1, indicating that initiation times for actions that triggered fast effects were not generally shorter than those triggering slow effects. The latter result diverges from previous findings (Kunde, 2003).
Analogous to the initiation times, movement durations were re-analysed with the factors action duration and CPR duration. There were main effects of action duration, F(1,23) = 149.705, p < 0.001, η 2p = 0.867, CPR duration, F(1,23) = 7.520, p = 0.012, η 2p = 0.246, and an interaction, F(1,23) = 6.062, p = 0.022, η 2p = 0.209. Fast movements were performed faster than slow movements, and movements with slow CPR were performed faster than movements with fast CPR. Moreover, with a compatible mapping movements were performed faster than with an incompatible mapping. The presence of an interaction for the movement durations is in contrast with the findings of Kunde (2003).
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Acknowledgments
I want to thank Dietrich Kammer and René Dang for programming the multi-touch experiments, as well as Jens R. Helmert and Sebastian Pannasch for continuously supporting my work. Parts of this research were funded by the German Research Foundation (MU 3749/1-1).
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Müller, R. Does the anticipation of compatible partner reactions facilitate action planning in joint tasks?. Psychological Research 80, 464–486 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-015-0670-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-015-0670-0