Following during physically-coupled joint action engages motion area MT+/V5.

Léa A.S Chauvigné,Michel Belyk,Steven Brown

doi:10.3233/jin-170023

Abstract

Interpersonal coordination during joint action depends on the perception of the partner's movements. In many such situations - for example, while moving furniture together or dancing a tango - there are kinesthetic interactions between the partners due to the forces shared between them that allow them to directly perceive one another's movements. Joint action of this type often involves a contrast between the roles of leader and follower, where the leader imparts forces onto the follower, and the follower has to be responsive to these force-cues during movement. We carried out a novel 2-person functional MRI study with trained couple dancers engaged in bimanual contact with an experimenter standing next to the bore of the magnet, where the two alternated between being the leader and follower of joint improvised movements, all with the eyes closed. One brain area that was unexpectedly more active during following than leading was the region of MT+/V5. While classically described as an area for processing visual motion, it has more recently been shown to be responsive to tactile motion as well. We suggest that MT+/V5 responds to motion based on force-cues during joint haptic interaction, most especially when a follower responds to force-cues coming from a leader's movements.

Highlights

T Humans, as a social species, spend a great deal of their time coordinating actions with others, doing so with remarkable seamlessness
The results provide new insight into one critical facet of the asymmetry between leading and following in joint movement, namely that an area in the middle temporal region that is likely to be
H motion area MT+/V5 was significantly more active during following than leading. This might reflect T the fact that, in order for individuals to coordinate their movements during joint actions, followers have a greater requirement than leaders to rely on the perception of motion-related force-cues coming from

Summary

Introduction

T Humans, as a social species, spend a great deal of their time coordinating actions with others, doing so with remarkable seamlessness. Such coordination is often done in the service of cooperative goals. Even a simple joint action, such as two people moving A a piece of furniture together, requires that the participants achieve a high degree of both psychological and physical coordination [46]. Such coordination requires that the partners exchange information in an ongoing manner [42,52]. Kinesiological studies of joint action have explored the motor and proprioceptive mechanisms by which such force-cues form a haptic communication channel that allows partners to smoothly coordinate their actions and thereby support collective goals [50]

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