Interactional Synchrony

Synchrony has been found to increase trust, prosociality and interpersonal cohesion, possibly via neurocognitive self-other blurring. Researchers have thus highlighted synchrony as an engine of collective identity and cooperation, particularly in religious ritual. However, many aspects of group life require coordination, not merely prosocial cooperation. In coordination, interpersonal relations and motor sequences are complementary, and leadership hierarchies often streamline functioning. It is therefore unclear whether synchrony would benefit collaborative tasks requiring complex interdependent coordination. In a two-condition paradigm, we tested synchrony's effects on a three-person, complex verbal coordination task. Groups in the synchrony condition performed more poorly on the task, reporting more conflict, less cohesion, and less similarity. These results indicate boundary conditions on prosocial synchrony: in settings that require complex, interdependent social coordination, self-other blurring may disrupt complementary functioning. These findings dovetail with the anthropological observation that real-world ritual often generates and maintains social distinctions rather than social unison.

Previous work has shown that nonverbal behavior was associated with both session-level outcome and global outcome in psychotherapy. Nonverbal synchrony - here the coordination between patient”s and psychotherapist”s movement behavior - is a facet of nonverbal behavior that has recently been studied with video-based motion energy analysis (MEA). The present study aimed to replicate and extend these findings by using direct acquisition of movement data. In a single-case analysis, we monitored patient”s and therapist”s hand movements with a high-resolution accelerometric measurement system (Vitaport (r)). In addition to these behavioral data, both patient and therapist provided session-level ratings of various factors relevant to the psychotherapy process, which were assessed with post-session questionnaires. The patient-therapist coordination of hand movements, i.e. nonverbal synchrony, in (N = 27) sessions of this dyadic psychotherapy was positively associated with progress reported in post-session questionnaires. Sessions with good evaluations concerning the quality of therapeutic alliance were characterized by high movement coordination. Thus, accelerometric data of this therapy dyad confirmed previous findings gained through video analyses: The coordination of nonverbal behavior shown by patient and therapist was an indicator of beneficial processes occurring within sessions. This replication study showed that nonverbal synchrony embodies important aspects of the alliance. Its assessment and quantification may provide therapists important additional information on processes that usually occur outside conscious awareness, but that nevertheless influence core aspects of the therapy.

The social benefits of interpersonal synchrony are widely recognized. Yet, little is known about its impact on the self. According to enactive cognitive science, the human self for its stability and regulation needs to balance social attunement with disengagement from others. Too much interpersonal synchrony is considered detrimental for a person's ability to self-regulate. In this study, 66 adults took part in the Body-Conversation Task (BCT), a dyadic movement task promoting spontaneous social interaction. Using whole-body behavioural imaging, we investigated the simultaneous impact of interpersonal synchrony (between persons) and intrapersonal synchrony (within a person) on positive affect and self-regulation of affect. We hypothesized that interpersonal synchrony's known tendency to increase positive affect would have a trade-off, decreasing a person's ability to self-regulate affect. Interpersonal synchrony predicted an increase in positive affect. Consistent with our hypothesis, it simultaneously predicted a weakening in self-regulation of affect. Intrapersonal synchrony, however, tended to oppose these effects. Our findings challenge the widespread belief that harmony with others has only beneficial effects, pointing to the need to better understand the impact of interaction dynamics on the stability and regulation of the human self. Humans are no islands, but interconnected social beings. We continuously engage in social interactions and are affected by them in return. Important dimensions of this reciprocal process remain beyond our awareness. They play out as we automatically attune and synchronize our movements and actions with others 1-3. Interpersonal synchrony is beneficial as it functions as a social glue 4 and facilitates harmonious interactions between people 5-7. Considerable evidence shows that synchrony improves cooperative and other social skills 8,9. However, an important question still remains: what is the impact of interpersonal synchrony on the self? In this study we draw on a recent hypothesis in enactive cognitive science, according to which the stability of the self vitally relies on a balance between attunement with others, and the need for independence from them 10,11. Following this, we challenge the widespread assumption that being in harmony with others is unquestionably beneficial or desirable. We hypothesize that too much social attunement is detrimental to the self 's stability and regulatory processes. While having obvious relevance for our social abilities, interpersonal synchrony might thus actually have a negative trade-off when it comes to the self. Enactive approaches to cognitive science have recently challenged an individualist notion of the human self, according to which there is a clear-cut distinction between an agent and the objectively-given material or social world 12,13. Instead, the relation between agent and world is described in terms of non-linear interactive dynamics, whereby agent and environment are mutually constrained by each other 13,14. On this dynamical view, the boundary of the agent is not given, but continuously "enacted" (i.e. brought forth) through a process of self-organization, in which the agent actively structures the exchanges with the environment and thereby generates and maintains a form of systemic stability 12. Such self-organizing processes can be found at several levels of the individual organism , e.g. in metabolic and neurobiological homeostasis 15 , sensorimotor integration 13,16 , as well as in inter-limb coordination 17,18. But they also occur beyond the individual organism, at the social or collective level 19 .

Background

Disordered interpersonal communication can be a serious problem in schizophrenia. Recent advances in computer-based measures allow reliable and objective quantification of nonverbal behavior. Research using these novel measures has shown that objective amounts of body and head movement in patients with schizophrenia during social interactions are closely related to the symptom profiles of these patients. In addition to and above mere amounts of movement, the degree of synchrony, or imitation, between patients and normal interactants may be indicative of core deficits underlying various problems in domains related to interpersonal communication, such as symptoms, social competence, and social functioning.

Methods

Nonverbal synchrony was assessed objectively using Motion Energy Analysis (MEA) in 378 brief, videotaped role-play scenes involving 27 stabilized outpatients diagnosed with paranoid-type schizophrenia.

Results

Low nonverbal synchrony was indicative of symptoms, low social competence, impaired social functioning, and low self-evaluation of competence. These relationships remained largely significant when correcting for the amounts of patients‘ movement. When patients showed reduced imitation of their interactants’ movements, negative symptoms were likely to be prominent. Conversely, positive symptoms were more prominent in patients when their interaction partners’ imitation of their movements was reduced.

Conclusions

Nonverbal synchrony can be an objective and sensitive indicator of the severity of patients’ problems. Furthermore, quantitative analysis of nonverbal synchrony may provide novel insights into specific relationships between symptoms, cognition, and core communicative problems in schizophrenia.