Coordination Cost and Super-Efficiency in Teamwork: The Role of Communication, Psychological States, Cardiovascular Responses, and Brain Rhythms

Edson Filho,Ben Hoyle,Luca Zugic,Jamie Taylor

doi:10.1007/s10484-020-09479-8

Edson Filho, Ben Hoyle + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10484-020-09479-8

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Abstract

To advance knowledge on the psychophysiological markers of “coordination cost” in team settings, we explored differences in meta-communication patterns (i.e., silence, speaking, listening, and overlap), perceived psychological states (i.e., core affect, attention, efficacy beliefs), heart rate variability (i.e., RMSSD), and brain rhythms (i.e., alpha, beta and theta absolute power) across three studies involving 48 male dyads (Mage = 21.30; SD = 2.03). Skilled participants cooperatively played three consecutive FIFA-17 (Xbox) games in a dyad against the computer, or competed against the computer in a solo condition and a dyad condition. We observed that playing in a team, in contrast to playing alone, was associated with higher alpha peak and global efficiency in the brain and, at the same time, led to an increase in focused attention as evidenced by participants’ higher theta activity in the frontal lobe. Moreover, we observed that overtime participants’ brain dynamics moved towards a state of “neural-efficiency”, characterized by increased theta and beta activity in the frontal lobe, and high alpha activity across the whole brain. Our findings advance the literature by demonstrating that (1) the notion of coordination cost can be captured at the neural level in the initial stages of team development; (2) by decreasing the costs of switching between tasks, teamwork increases both individuals’ attentional focus and global neural efficiency; and (3) communication dynamics become more proficient and individuals’ brain patterns change towards neural efficiency over time, likely due to team learning and decreases in intra-team conflict.

Highlights

Different theoretical frameworks have been used to study teamwork across domains
Forty-eight male participants were assembled into 24 dyads. This sample size was based on research suggesting that data for at least 15 teams should be collected to allow for reliable parameter estimation in group dynamics research (Kerkhoff and Nussbeck 2019)
Single effects repeated measures ANOVA with a Greenhouse–Geisser correction were computed for all variables and, where applicable, Bonferroni corrections were used for all post-hoc comparisons

Summary

Introduction

Different theoretical frameworks have been used to study teamwork across domains. From an evolutionary perspective, teamwork allows for super-efficiency in the natural world (Anderson and Franks 2001). Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback knowledge types (i.e., knowledge of what, why, how, when and where; see Filho and Tenenbaum 2020) To this extent, multi-person physiological studies with interactive jugglers (e.g., Filho et al 2015a, b; Filho et al 2016; Filho et al 2017; Stone et al 2019) and duet-guitar players (see Sänger et al 2012, 2013) have revealed that team coordination is possible because teammates activate shared and complementary brain areas to sustain joint attention and action. The development of team knowledge decreases coordination cost because teammates learn to communicate more effectively and save energy through the division of labour (Eccles 2010; Filho and Tenenbaum 2020). We adopted a multi-modal approach given that team processes possess several psycho-bio-social markers or reflective indicators (Cacioppo et al 2007; Hannah et al 2013), and akin to the importance of data triangulation to prevent common methodological biases in applied research (Podsakoff et al 2003; Thorson et al 2018)

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