Preceding and trailing role-taking in dyad synchronization using finger tapping.

Area of Science:

• Human motor control
• Social interaction
• Rhythmic coordination

Background:

• Human ensembles involve synchronized movement timing.
• Preceding and trailing roles, where one's beat is earlier or later than another's, are observed in musical performance.
• The spontaneous emergence and characteristics of these roles in non-musicians during simple rhythmic coordination are not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether non-musicians spontaneously divide into preceding and trailing roles during simple rhythmic coordination.
• To examine the temporal dependencies and behavioral characteristics associated with these roles.

Main Methods:

• A synchronous-continuous tapping task was employed with pairs of participants.
• Participants initially synchronized their tapping to a metronome.
• Following metronome cessation, participants synchronized to their partner's tapping, presented as auditory stimuli.

Main Results:

• Pairs predominantly adopted preceding and trailing roles.
• Participants in the preceding role exhibited enhanced phase-correction responses.
• Participants in the trailing role showed significant tempo adaptation to match their partners.
• Preceding roles aimed to minimize timing discrepancies, while trailing roles focused on tempo matching.

Conclusions:

• Simple rhythmic coordination among non-musicians spontaneously leads to the division of preceding and trailing roles.
• Distinct behavioral strategies are employed by participants in each role to maintain coordination.
• This division facilitates dyadic rhythmic synchronization and highlights adaptive mechanisms in interpersonal timing.