Grouping feedback components by common fate benefits motor-respiratory coordination

The purpose of this study was to see how motor-respiratory coordination could improve with augmented visual feedback. Participants performed inphase and antiphase patterns between movement and breathing. When the target pattern was performed properly, balls in a feedback display either moved up and down together (inphase feedback) or opposite each other (antiphase feedback). Relative phase performance was less variable in the augmented feedback conditions than in a no display control condition. Within the augmented feedback conditions, variability was lower with inphase feedback than antiphase feedback. Cross-recurrence analysis was used to determine whether other changes occurred on shorter time scales. On cross-recurrence measures, performance was more variable with inphase feedback than in the control condition and with antiphase feedback. Those results suggest that, with inphase feedback, participants were able to achieve more stable overall relative phase patterns using small within-cycle trajectory changes. Those small changes were possible because the balls in the inphase feedback display were grouped by common fate. That perceptual organization made it possible for participants to see slight mismatches between movement and breathing and control coordination accordingly.