Investigating the role of attention and actor similarity for joint action

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Roman Liepelt
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2011 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 199828460

Human information processing often occurs when we act together with others to achieve common goals (joint action). One of the most prominent paradigms to test joint action is the social Simon paradigm in which two people share a Simon task. When two participants perform this version of the Simon task together, a (social) Simon effect occurs (i.e., performance is better with spatial stimulus-response S-R correspondence), but no Simon effect is usually observed when participants perform the task alone. Accordingly, joint action has been proposed to be fundamentally different to individual action where one person acts alone to achieve his/her own goals. During the first project phase we found evidence that Simon-like effects can be induced when an individual person interacts with a robot or an event-producing object. The aim of the second project phase is to answer the question if joint action is mediated by dedicated social mechanisms or by domain-general processes. Using behavioral methods this project aims to specify the role of attention for joint action. Further, this project is aimed to specify the role of actor similarity and spatial, body and agency information for joint action. By applying real joint action scenarios we plan to test and extend various aspects of the cognitive model of referential coding for joint action that we have developed during the first project phase. By specifying the cognitive mechanisms underlying joint action control, the planned work is aimed to provide important answers to one of the most central questions of our time: What are the cognitive mechanisms underlying joint action that may have paved the way for our cultural development and all modern societies?

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Netherlands
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Bernhard Hommel