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The current work investigated the emergence of leader-follower roles during social motor coordination. Previous research has presumed a leader during coordination assumes a spatiotemporally advanced position (e.g., relative phase lead). While intuitive, this definition discounts what role-taking implies. Leading and following is defined as one person (or limb) having a

The current work investigated the emergence of leader-follower roles during social motor coordination. Previous research has presumed a leader during coordination assumes a spatiotemporally advanced position (e.g., relative phase lead). While intuitive, this definition discounts what role-taking implies. Leading and following is defined as one person (or limb) having a larger influence on the motor state changes of another; the coupling is asymmetric. Three experiments demonstrated asymmetric coupling effects emerge when task or biomechanical asymmetries are imputed between actors. Participants coordinated in-phase (Ф =0o) swinging of handheld pendulums, which differed in their uncoupled eigenfrequencies (frequency detuning). Coupling effects were recovered through phase-amplitude modeling. Experiment 1 examined leader-follower coupling during a bidirectional task. Experiment 2 employed an additional coupling asymmetry by assigning an explicit leader and follower. Both experiment 1 and 2 demonstrated asymmetric coupling effects with increased detuning. In experiment 2, though, the explicit follower exhibited a phase lead in nearly all conditions. These results confirm that coupling direction was not determined strictly by relative phasing. A third experiment examined the question raised by the previous two, which is how could someone follow from ahead (i.e., phase lead in experiment 2). This was tested using a combination of frequency detuning and amplitude asymmetry requirements (e.g., 1:1 or 1:2 & 2:1). Results demonstrated larger amplitude movements drove the coupling towards the person with the smaller amplitude; small amplitude movements exhibited a phase lead, despite being a follower in coupling terms. These results suggest leader-follower coupling is a general property of social motor coordination. Predicting when such coupling effects occur is emphasized by the stability reducing effects of coordinating asymmetric components. Generally, the implication is role-taking is an emergent strategy of dividing up coordination stabilizing efforts unequally between actors (or limbs).
ContributorsFine, Justin (Author) / Amazeen, Eric L. (Thesis advisor) / Amazeen, Polemnia G. (Committee member) / Brewer, Gene (Committee member) / Santello, Marco (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
Motor behavior is prone to variable conditions and deviates further in disorders affecting the nervous system. A combination of environmental and neural factors impacts the amount of uncertainty. Although the influence of these factors on estimating endpoint positions have been examined, the role of limb configuration on endpoint variability has

Motor behavior is prone to variable conditions and deviates further in disorders affecting the nervous system. A combination of environmental and neural factors impacts the amount of uncertainty. Although the influence of these factors on estimating endpoint positions have been examined, the role of limb configuration on endpoint variability has been mostly ignored. Characterizing the influence of arm configuration (i.e. intrinsic factors) would allow greater comprehension of sensorimotor integration and assist in interpreting exaggerated movement variability in patients. In this study, subjects were placed in a 3-D virtual reality environment and were asked to move from a starting position to one of three targets in the frontal plane with and without visual feedback of the moving limb. The alternating of visual feedback during trials increased uncertainty between the planning and execution phases. The starting limb configurations, adducted and abducted, were varied in separate blocks. Arm configurations were setup by rotating along the shoulder-hand axis to maintain endpoint position. The investigation hypothesized: 1) patterns of endpoint variability of movements would be dependent upon the starting arm configuration and 2) any differences observed would be more apparent in conditions that withheld visual feedback. The results indicated that there were differences in endpoint variability between arm configurations in both visual conditions, but differences in variability increased when visual feedback was withheld. Overall this suggests that in the presence of visual feedback, planning of movements in 3D space mostly uses coordinates that are arm configuration independent. On the other hand, without visual feedback, planning of movements in 3D space relies substantially on intrinsic coordinates.
ContributorsRahman, Qasim (Author) / Buneo, Christopher (Thesis director) / Helms Tillery, Stephen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor)
Created2014-05
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Description
Motor behavior is prone to variable conditions and deviates further in disorders affecting the nervous system. A combination of environmental and neural factors impacts the amount of uncertainty. Although the influence of these factors on estimating endpoint positions have been examined, the role of limb configuration on endpoint variability has

Motor behavior is prone to variable conditions and deviates further in disorders affecting the nervous system. A combination of environmental and neural factors impacts the amount of uncertainty. Although the influence of these factors on estimating endpoint positions have been examined, the role of limb configuration on endpoint variability has been mostly ignored. Characterizing the influence of arm configuration (i.e. intrinsic factors) would allow greater comprehension of sensorimotor integration and assist in interpreting exaggerated movement variability in patients. In this study, subjects were placed in a 3-D virtual reality environment and were asked to move from a starting position to one of three targets in the frontal plane with and without visual feedback of the moving limb. The alternating of visual feedback during trials increased uncertainty between the planning and execution phases. The starting limb configurations, adducted and abducted, were varied in separate blocks. Arm configurations were setup by rotating along the shoulder-hand axis to maintain endpoint position. The investigation hypothesized: 1) patterns of endpoint variability of movements would be dependent upon the starting arm configuration and 2) any differences observed would be more apparent in conditions that withheld visual feedback. The results indicated that there were differences in endpoint variability between arm configurations in both visual conditions, but differences in variability increased when visual feedback was withheld. Overall this suggests that in the presence of visual feedback, planning of movements in 3D space mostly uses coordinates that are arm configuration independent. On the other hand, without visual feedback, planning of movements in 3D space relies substantially on intrinsic coordinates.
ContributorsRahman, Qasim (Author) / Buneo, Christopher (Thesis director) / Helms Tillery, Stephen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor)
Created2014-05
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Description
Recent work in free-recall tasks suggest that human memory foraging may follow a Lévy flight distribution – a random walk procedure that is common in other activities of cognitive agents, such as animal and human food foraging. This study attempts to draw parallels between memory search and physical search, with

Recent work in free-recall tasks suggest that human memory foraging may follow a Lévy flight distribution – a random walk procedure that is common in other activities of cognitive agents, such as animal and human food foraging. This study attempts to draw parallels between memory search and physical search, with the assumption that humans follow similar search patterns in both. To date, research merely equates the two processes (foraging in memory and the physical world) based on a similarity in statistical structure. This study starts with demonstrating a relationship between physical distance traveled and IRIs by having participants list countries. An IRI, inter-retrieval interval, is the time interval between items recalled. The next experiment uses multidimensional scaling (MDS) to derive a Euclidean perceptual space from similarity ratings of freely-recalled items and then maps the trajectory of human thought through this perceptual space. This trajectory can offer a much more compelling comparison to physical foraging behavior. Finally, a possible correlate of Lévy flight foraging is explored called critical slowing down. Statistically significant evidence was found in all three experiments. The discussion connects all three experiments and what their results mean for human memory foraging.
ContributorsGreer, Katharine Marie (Author) / Amazeen, Eric L. (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Amazeen, Polemnia (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12