Beyond Synchrony: Complementarity and Asynchrony in Joint Action

Abstract

Beyond Synchrony: Complementarity and Asynchrony in Joint Action Rick Dale ([e-mail]) Cognitive and Information Sciences, UC Merced, 5200 N. Lake Road Merced, CA 95343 Riccardo Fusaroli ([e-mail]) Center for Semiotics and the Interacting Minds Center, Aarhus University, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 2, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark Dorthe Dojbak Hakonsson ([e-mail]) Interdisciplinary Center for Organizational Architecture, Fuglesangs Alle 20, Building 2635 I106 8210 Aarhus V, Denmark Patrick Healey ([e-mail]) Department of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road London E1 4NS Dan Monster ([e-mail]) School of Business and Social Sciences, Department of Economics and Business, Fuglesangs Alle 4 8210 Aarhus V, Denmark John J. McGraw ([e-mail]) TESIS Network, Ostboulevarden 11F, 2 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark Panagiotis Mitkidis ([e-mail]) Center for Advanced Hindsight, Social Science Research Institute, Duke University, 2024 West Main Street Durham, NC 27705 Kristian Tylen ([e-mail]) Center for Semiotics and the Interacting Minds Center, Aarhus University, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 2 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark Keywords: Joint action; distributed cognition; social cognition; interpersonal coordination. rowing may afford interacting agents to synchronize their individual behaviours to reach high levels of joint performance, other types of joint activity – like playing a game of baseball – rather afford complementary actions: i.e. tightly coupled, reciprocal activity derived from different behaviours performed across an extended temporal sequence. Shared construction tasks as well as task-oriented dialogues, for instance, have been shown to require smooth turn-taking, and the development of interactional routines which might involve complementary roles (Dale, Fusaroli, Duran, & Richardson, in press; Fusaroli, Raczaszek- Leonardi, & Tylen, accepted). Cultural practices dwell upon and stabilize complementary distribution of work, to make challenging task as the sailing of a warship or the construction of huge buildings possible (Hutchins, 1995; Perry, 2010). The session will address the implications and respective roles of synchrony, complementarity and asynchrony as components of coordination. Different methods and perspectives for quantifying and assessing coordinative dynamics in language, behaviour and physiology will be presented conceptually and in their empirical application. Summary of Topic Recent advances in social cognition and joint action reveal the social and the mutual, rather than the individual and the dichotomous aspects of cognition (Hasson, Ghazanfar, Galantucci, Garrod, & Keysers, 2012). A widespread and powerful model of socially interactive behavior is ‘synchrony’ (Jirsa & Kelso, 2004): Numerous studies have thus recently indicated how individuals through social interaction become increasingly entrained on multiple levels from physiology to syntax: through interaction people synchronize their heart rates, their subtle postural sways, their gestures and gaze behaviors, align their lexicon and their syntax (Fusaroli & Tylen, 2012; Louwerse, Dale, Bard, & Jeuniaux, 2012; Pickering & Garrod, 2004). However, emerging scholarship is increasingly attending to many instances in which patterns of complementary and asynchronous actions rather than synchronous ones seem to predict high levels of interpersonal coordination and joint performance. While some activities such as expertly timed