Günther Knoblich -"An overview of psychological research on joint action"

Recording of the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Brain and Technology Summer School, September 2012. Listen also to an interview with this and other speakers at www.csnetwork.eu/podcast and find even more on these topics at www.csnetwork.eu

"When two or more people coordinate their actions in space and time to produce a joint outcome, they perform a joint action. The perceptual, cognitive, and motor processes that enable individuals to coordinate their actions with others have been receiving increasing attention during the last decade, complementing earlier work on shared intentionality and discourse. I will review the state of the art in joint action research distinguishing between planned and emergent coordination. In planned coordination, agents behavior is driven by representations that specify the desired outcomes of joint action and the agent's own part in achieving these outcomes. In emergent coordination, coordinated behavior occurs due to perception-action couplings that make multiple individuals act in similar ways, independently of joint plans. I will review evidence for the two types of coordination and discuss potential synergies between them."