Positive emotions foster spontaneous synchronisation in a group movement improvisation task

Area of Science:

• Social Neuroscience
• Affective Science
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Emotions are integral to social interaction and influence human behavior, perception, and physiology.
• Existing research on emotion's impact on joint action often uses enacted emotions and dyadic interactions, limiting ecological validity.
• The effect of naturalistically induced emotions on multi-person synchrony in complex, interactive tasks remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how naturalistically induced positive and negative emotions affect spontaneous interpersonal synchrony during a multi-person improvisation task.
• To explore the differences in behavioral and physiological synchrony between groups experiencing positive, negative, or neutral emotional states.
• To establish a method for quantifying synchrony in ecological, improvisational social interactions.

Main Methods:

• Recruited 39 participants in triads who enjoyed improvisational activities.
• Induced emotional states using manipulated social feedback (personal ranking score).
• Recorded 3D spatio-temporal movement data and cardiac activity, analyzing oscillatory phases to compute behavioral and physiological synchrony using the Kuramoto model.

Main Results:

• Participants induced with positive emotions exhibited longer-lasting behavioral synchrony compared to those in negative or neutral emotional states.
• Emotional valence significantly altered spontaneous human synchronous behavior during the improvisation task.
• The study successfully quantified synchrony in a naturalistic, interactive, improvisational setting.

Conclusions:

• Positive emotions enhance and prolong interpersonal behavioral synchrony in group settings.
• This research supports the shift towards studying emotions in socially significant, interactive environments.
• The findings highlight the crucial role of emotions in socio-motor coordination and group dynamics.