Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Social motor coordination (SMC), defined as the intentional or unintentional coordination of movement between individuals in a social setting, has been linked to greater feelings of rapport and social connectedness. Here, we investigated this relationship using a silent disco paradigm where groups of 3 or 4 individuals danced to either the same music or different music. Visual information was manipulated by initially separating the participants with curtains (2 minutes), after which the curtains were opened (10 minutes). Head movements were recorded with a wireless motion tracking system attached to the silent disco headphones. Rapport and social connectedness measures were obtained using questionnaires completed after participation in the silent disco. Results showed that groups who listened to the same music exhibited a greater degree of SMC than groups that listened to different music. Greater degrees of SMC were also observed when group members were able to see one another. Finally, greater SMC was associated with perceptions of increased self-other overlap and interaction quality.