Being in the zone: physiological markers of togetherness in joint improvisation

Abstract

Performers improvising together describe special moments of ‘being in the zone’ – periods of high performance, synchrony, and enhanced sense of togetherness. Existing evidence suggests a possible route for attaining togetherness – interpersonal synchrony, the fine-grained sensory-motor coordination that promotes social connectedness. Here, we investigated the physiological characteristics of togetherness using a practice from theater and dance, the mirror game. Pairs of expert improvisers jointly improvised synchronized linear motion, while their motion tracks and cardiovascular activity were continuously monitored. Players also provided dynamic ratings of togetherness while watching video recordings of their games. We identified periods of togetherness using kinematic and subjective markers and assessed their physiological characteristics. The kinematic and the subjective measures of togetherness showed some agreement, with more extensive game periods being marked by the subjective than the kinematic one. Game rounds with high rates of togetherness were characterized by increased players’ cardiovascular activity, increased correlation of players’ heart rates (HRs), and increased motion intensity. By comparing motion segments with similar motion intensity, we showed that moments of togetherness in the mirror game were marked by increased players’ HRs, regardless of motion intensity. This pattern was robust for the subjectively defined periods of togetherness, while showing a marginal effect for the kinematically defined togetherness. Building upon similar findings in flow research we suggest that the observed increase of players’ HRs during togetherness periods in the mirror game might indicate the enhanced engagement and enjoyment reported by performers going into ‘the zone.’ The suggested approach, combining temporal measurements of kinematic, physiological and subjective responses, demonstrates how the dynamics of spontaneously emerging dyadic states can be studied empirically.

Centrality of Social Interaction in Human Brain Function

“…Furthermore, Noy et al (Noy et al, 2015), using the same game, noticed that during the moments of togetherness, or ''being in the zone''-that formed about 15% of the whole playing period and were assessed by subjective ratings and by kinematics of the players-were characterized by increased heart rates regardless of motion intensity. Such a pattern was seen for subjectively defined periods of togetherness but clearly less so for the kinematically defined epochs of togetherness.…”

“…Two more recent studies focused on the feelings of ''togetherness'' during improvised motion, a phenomenon familiar to many dancers, musicians, and actors acting in synchrony (Hart et al, 2014;Noy et al, 2015). Hart et al (Hart et al, 2014) noticed that although individuals have their characteristic signatures of velocity patterns in the mirror game (that they use while acting as leaders), during the togetherness epochs these movement patterns were different; they were not of either of the participants, nor were they just average or intermediate patterns but distinctly different from the individual patterns.…”

“…STS is especially sensitive to biological motion (Vaina et al, 2001) and has also been associated with joint social attention (Nummenmaa and Calder, 2009), where eye gaze, as an important social cue, indicates the focus of one's attention. Recently, human STS was shown to contain both broadly tuned regions and more narrowly tuned subregions, each responsive to a subset of social information (Deen et al, 2015).…”

Grasping intersubjectivity: an invitation to embody social interaction research

“…We expect growing insights into the subjective experience of interacting. In combination with empirical research on different aspects of interaction processes, this can lead to novel hypotheses, for example regarding intra-and interindividual coordination (Trevarthen and Aitken 2001;Laroche et al 2014;Noy et al 2015;Bachrach et al 2015;Dumas et al 2014;De Jaegher et al 2016).…”

Investigating collaborative learning success with physiological coupling indices based on electrodermal activity

“…Little or no agreement on how to call this physiological relationship has been reached. The diverse nomenclature found includes (chronologically sorted): physiological linkage [31], physiological compliance [50], physiological synchronization [24], physiological correlation [15], joint changes in the physiological signals [25], physiological coupling [11] and physiological markers of togetherness [39]. From now on, this paper uses physiological coupling (PC) for the idea of influence it suggests.…”