ABSTRACT
Most research on interpersonal coordination has employed the wrist-pendulum paradigm to demonstrate that visual information is sufficient to couple the rhythmic movements of co-actors (Schmidt & Turvey, 1994, Schmidt & O’Brien, 1997; Schmidt, Bienvenu, Fitzpatrick & Amazeen, 1998). Despite the clarity of this work, questions about the ecological validity of this methodology for the study of interpersonal coordination have been raised (Richardson, Marsh, & Schmidt, 2005). As a result, a new methodology was developed which employs a more commonplace, everyday task; namely, having individuals sit side-by-side in rocking chairs. Two experiments reported here examined the validity of this paradigm for the study of interpersonal coordination.
