Dance Ensemble Synchronisation: Movement Timing between two or more People by Juliane Jacqueline Honisch A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY School of Psychology The University of Birmingham December 2011 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract Dancers’ need to be coordinated in an ensemble poses multisensory challenges. The present thesis focuses on temporal aspects of visually mediated interpersonal synchronisation in dance, emphasising feedback control, using an information processing perspective. The thesis firstly reviews previous literature on psychological factors in the coordination of dance (Chapter 1). Measurement methods and analyses to examine timing of dancers’ interpersonal synchronisation are then introduced (Chapter 2). In the first two experimental chapters (Chapters 3, 4) a lead-follower paradigm is developed to quantify the temporal linkage between two or more individuals. Performer interdependence was estimated using mean, variance and serial correlation measures. Chapter 3 evaluates multimodal (auditory and visual sources) and Chapter 4 unimodal (two visual sources) on individuals’ synchronisation performances. In Chapter 5, dancers’ interpersonal synchronisation and the effect of visual and sensorimotor familiarity were investigated. Findings suggest that more familiar dance poses increase synchronisation accuracy. Chapter 6 examines firstly, the potential role of an internal forward model in visually mediated synchronisation and secondly, the effect of top- down modulation in interpersonal synchronisation. In summary, the paradigm and methods of this thesis provide new ways of exploring dance ensemble synchronisation. Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank Alan Wing for giving me the opportunity to research an area I am passionate about. Without his help and support I would not have been able to conduct my research in this area of psychology. I am grateful for Alan’s expertise, his patience and his teaching approach that allowed me to think independently. Also, I would like to thank Qualisys for providing the scholarship for my PhD research and the expert dancers who volunteered to participate in a four hours long study - I appreciate your hard work and I am sorry for the muscles aches it caused. I extend a special thanks to everyone in the Symonlab who ably assisted me in overcoming any project difficulties and to Marek Sinason for taking so much time in exploring ideas with me. A big thank you also goes to Mark Elliott, Nick Roach and Dagmar Fraser for the long hours spent on helping me set up and analyse my data. Due to your support, any technical difficulties I faced along the way were overcome with humour and good grace, and I hope that the skills I have learnt along the way will serve me well in the future. I would also like to thank Caroline Gillett for collaborating with me during one of the experiments in the thesis (Chapter 6). Our ‘Agency’ study was undoubtedly the most complex research area, due to the sheer size of the data to analyse and I am glad that the years of hard work and late nights spent analysing it has proven to be worthwhile. Finally, I would like to especially thank my family; my mother, father and sister for their continual support and the love and encouragement they provided me with during these several years past. I therefore dedicate this thesis to them. And last but not least, a special thank you to Oliver, whose unwavering support has helped me through the final year of my research. Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview of the Thesis......................................... 1 1.1 Dance as a Social Form of Communication....................................................... 1 1.2 Dance Science.................................................................................................... 5 1.3 Research into Timing in Dance.......................................................................... 6 1.4 Empirical Model of Dance Ensemble Synchronisation..................................... 10 1.5 Chapter Overview............................................................................................... 17 Chapter 2: Analysing Timing in Dance................................................................ 22 2.1 Dance Notation................................................................................................... 22 2.2 Optical Tracking Systems.................................................................................. 25 2.3 Sensorimotor Synchronisation in Dance............................................................ 31 2.4 Linear model of Error Correction....................................................................... 36 2.5 Proposed Method of Analysing Dance............................................................... 42 Chapter 3: Visual Mediated Synchronisation between performers: A 45 possible Paradigm for Dance?.............................................................................. 3.1. Introduction....................................................................................................... 45 3.1.1 Present Study....................................................................................... 50 3.2 Method............................................................................................................... 52 3.2.1 Participants.......................................................................................... 52 3.2.2 Apparatus............................................................................................ 53 3.2.3 Metronome Stimulus........................................................................... 54 3.2.4 Procedure............................................................................................. 56 3.2.5 Analysis............................................................................................... 58 3.2.5.1 Kinematics............................................................................ 58 3.3 Results................................................................................................................ 61 3.3.1. ANOVAs of Synchronisation Phase.................................................. 61 3.3.1.1. Mean Asynchrony (A)......................................................... 62 3.3.1.2. Standard Deviation of Asynchrony (sdA)........................... 64 3.3.1.3. Mean Inter-Movement-Intervals (IMI)............................... 65 3.3.1.4. Standard Deviation of IMI (sdIMI)..................................... 65 3.3.2 ANOVAs of Continuation Phase........................................................ 67 3.3.2. 1. Mean Inter-Movement-Intervals (IMI).............................. 68 3.3.2. 2. Standard Deviation of IMI (sdIMI).................................... 69 3.3.3 Cross Correlation Analysis................................................................. 70 3.3.4 Post-Perturbation Recovery................................................................ 72 3.3.5 Summary............................................................................................. 74 3.4 Discussion.......................................................................................................... 75 3.4.1. Summary............................................................................................ 83 Chapter 4: Synchronised Timing with Multiple Performers: ‘The Circle Paradigm’........................................................................................... 86 4.1 Introduction........................................................................................................ 86 4.1.1 Multi-Person Coordination................................................................. 87 4.1.2 Sensory Integration of External Stimuli............................................. 89 4.1.3 Present Study...................................................................................... 92 4.2 Method............................................................................................................... 94 4.2.1 Participants.......................................................................................... 94 4.2.2 Apparatus............................................................................................ 94 4.2.3 Metronome Stimulus........................................................................... 96 4.2.4 Procedure............................................................................................. 96 4.2.5 Analysis............................................................................................... 98 4.2.5.1 Kinematics............................................................................ 98 4.3 Results................................................................................................................ 100 4.3.1 ANOVAs for Group............................................................................ 101 4.3.1.1