Leader–Follower Role Allocation for Physical Collaboration in Human Dyads

Rebeka Kropivšek Leskovar,Tadej Petrič,Jernej Čamernik

doi:10.3390/app11198928

Rebeka Kropivšek Leskovar, Tadej Petrič + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/app11198928

Copy DOI

Abstract

People often find themselves in situations where collaboration with others is necessary to accomplish a particular task. In such cases, a leader–follower relationship is established to coordinate a plan to achieve a common goal. This is usually accomplished through verbal communication. However, what happens when verbal communication is not possible? In this study, we observe the dynamics of a leader–follower relationship in human dyads during collaborative tasks where there is no verbal communication between partners. Using two robotic arms, we designed a collaborative experimental task in which subjects perform the task individually or coupled together through a virtual model. The results show that human partners fall into the leader–follower dynamics even when they cannot communicate verbally. We demonstrate this in two steps. First, we study how each subject in a collaboration influences task performance, and second, we evaluate whether both partners influence it equally or not using our proposed sorting method to objectively identify a leader. We also study the leader–follower dynamics by analysing the task performance of partners during their individual sessions to predict the role distribution in a dyad. Based on the results of our prediction method, we conclude that the higher-performing individual performance will assume the role of a leader in collaboration.

Highlights

A social behaviour that innately occurs in group collaboration is the leader–follower dynamic, where in order to perform a collaborative task effectively, one of the partners in collaboration must assume the role of a leader whether coordination is done through verbal [1] or non-verbal communication—through physical interaction
The goal of this study was to observe the leader–follower dynamics in dyadic interactions and to evaluate whether these dynamics can be predicted in a dyad based on the individual performance of the partners
We hypothesised that the definition of higher-performing and lower-performing subject in individual tasks will influence how the leader–follower dynamics will be predicted in the collaborative task

Summary

Introduction

A social behaviour that innately occurs in group collaboration is the leader–follower dynamic, where in order to perform a collaborative task effectively, one of the partners in collaboration must assume the role of a leader whether coordination is done through verbal [1] or non-verbal communication—through physical interaction. The study presented evidence that the task performance of both partners improved to some degree, even when the partner of the subject displayed lower task performance as an individual. A study by Beckers et al [10] displayed that task performance improved when the subjects were in collaboration, there was no improvement in task learning due to collaborating with a partner This indicates that the task at hand and coupling dynamics are important factors in human collaboration

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion