Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2021 Dec 29;16(12):e0261735. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0261735. eCollection 2021.
In joint action literature it is often assumed that acting together is driven by pervasive and automatic process of co-representation, that is, representing the co-actor's part of the task in addition to one's own. Much of this research employs joint stimulus-response compatibility tasks varying the stimuli employed or the physical and social relations between participants. In this study we test the robustness of co-representation effects by focusing instead on variation in response modality. Specifically, we implement a mouse-tracking version of a Joint Simon Task in which participants respond by producing continuous movements with a computer mouse rather than pushing discrete buttons. We have three key findings. First, in a replication of an earlier study we show that in a classical individual Simon Task movement trajectories show greater curvature on incongruent trials, paralleling longer response times. Second, this effect largely disappears in a Go-NoGo Simon Task, in which participants respond to only one of the cues and refrain from responding to the other. Third, contrary to previous studies that use button pressing responses, we observe no overall effect in the joint variants of the task. However, we also detect a notable diversity in movement strategies adopted by the participants, with some participants showing the effect on the individual level. Our study casts doubt on the pervasiveness of co-representation, highlights the usefulness of mouse-tracking methodology and emphasizes the need for looking at individual variation in task performance.
在联合行动文献中，人们通常假设共同行动是由共同表现的普遍和自动过程驱动的，也就是说，除了代表自己的任务部分外，还代表共同行动者的任务部分。这项研究的大部分采用了联合刺激-反应相容性任务，改变了所使用的刺激或参与者之间的物理和社会关系。在这项研究中，我们通过关注反应模态的变化来测试共同表现效应的稳健性。具体来说，我们实现了联合西蒙任务的鼠标跟踪版本，其中参与者通过用计算机鼠标进行连续运动来做出反应，而不是推动离散按钮。我们有三个关键发现。首先，在对早期研究的复制中，我们表明，在经典的个体西蒙任务中，运动轨迹在不一致的试验中显示出更大的曲率，与更长的反应时间平行。其次，在仅对一个线索做出反应而对另一个线索不做出反应的 Go-NoGo 西蒙任务中，这种效应基本消失。第三，与之前使用按钮按压反应的研究相反，我们在任务的联合变体中没有观察到总体效应。然而，我们也观察到参与者采用的运动策略存在显著的多样性，一些参与者在个体水平上表现出了这种效应。我们的研究对共同表现的普遍性提出了质疑，突出了鼠标跟踪方法的有用性，并强调了需要研究任务表现中的个体差异。
