Department of Intelligent Interaction Technology, Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1, Tennodai, Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki, 305-8573, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2019 Jul 29;9(1):10960. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-47525-6.
A person's behavioral rhythms are synchronized spontaneously and unconsciously with those of other people, which often have positive effects, such as facilitating cooperation on tasks and promoting empathy for others. Although synchronization is induced by mutual interaction, it is unclear whether both individuals have the same influence. Is there a division of roles, in which some people are leaders and some followers? To address this, we calculated the transfer entropy (TE) of behavioral rhythms in a two-person cooperative tapping task, which provides an estimate of the direction of information propagation between two systems. We used TE to identify the causal relationship between two people (leader and follower); that is, the significant differences in the TE from one partner to another and vice versa. In this study, if there was a high TE from one individual (e.g., participant A) to the other individual (e.g., participant B), we defined participant A as the leader group and B as the follower group. First, using computer simulations, the programs which tapping intervals were almost independent with or were almost same with those of the partner programs were identified as the leader or follower, respectively, thereby confirming our hypothesis. Second, based on the results of the human experiment, we identified the leader and follower in some groups. Interestingly, the leader group showed a high systemizing quotient, which is related to communication deficits in developmental disorders such as autism. The results are consistent with participants' subjective impressions of their partners. Our methods can be used to estimate the interpersonal division of roles in complex human communications.
人的行为节律会自发且无意识地与他人同步，这通常会产生积极的影响，例如促进任务合作和增进对他人的同理心。尽管同步是通过相互作用引起的，但尚不清楚两个人是否具有相同的影响力。是否存在角色分工，有些人是领导者，有些人是追随者？为了解决这个问题，我们在两人合作敲击任务中计算了行为节律的转移熵（TE），这提供了两个系统之间信息传播方向的估计。我们使用 TE 来识别两个人之间的因果关系（领导者和追随者）；也就是说，从一个伙伴到另一个伙伴的 TE 存在显著差异，反之亦然。在这项研究中，如果一个人（例如参与者 A）到另一个人（例如参与者 B）的 TE 很高，我们将参与者 A 定义为领导者群体，B 定义为追随者群体。首先，通过计算机模拟，我们确定了敲击间隔几乎与伙伴程序独立或几乎相同的程序分别为领导者或追随者，从而验证了我们的假设。其次，基于人类实验的结果，我们确定了一些组中的领导者和追随者。有趣的是，领导者群体表现出较高的系统化商数，这与自闭症等发育障碍中的沟通缺陷有关。结果与参与者对其伙伴的主观印象一致。我们的方法可用于估计复杂人际交流中的角色分工。
