Dear All,

This is kind reminder about Elisa's defense today starting at 3 pm in room D001:

The Department of Cognitive Science

cordially invites you to the public defense of the PhD thesis

SELF-OTHER RELATIONS IN INTERPERSONAL SYNCHRONY

by

Elisa Wiedemann

Monday, September 15, 3 P.M. CET

Room D001 (CEU, Quellenstrasse 51, 1100 Vienna)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/96089305421?pwd=CA0j7jIIlMX1x9ePnD9xh3rVoYZMWa.1

Meeting ID: 960 8930 5421
Passcode: 032055

PRIMARY SUPERVISOR:   Natalie Sebanz (CEU)

SECONDARY SUPERVISOR:   Günther Knoblich (CEU)

Members of the Dissertation Committee:

Ernő Téglás, Chair, CEU

Professor Tal Chen Rabinowitch, University of Haifa as External examiner

Professor Antonia Hamilton, UCL as External examiner

*Anyone not affiliated with CEU wishing to attend in-person in Vienna must RSVP here to get access to the lecture hall.

ABSTRACT |This thesis examines self-other relations in interpersonal synchrony. Taking an experimental approach, we investigated in a series of experiments whether performing the same movements at the same time as another person leads to an increase in self-other overlap, thereby enhancing affiliation. We found that interpersonal synchrony affects perceived, but not motor-level self-other overlap, suggesting that it is likely a social recategorization of the self in relation to others that gives rise to the effects of interpersonal synchrony. In a further qualitative study, we addressed the experience elicited by interpersonal synchrony in discrete and continuous movement contexts, finding that the experience of interpersonal coordination can be described as following a generic diachronic structure made up of three phases: an initial phase of starting, a phase of (non-)adaptation, and a phase of stable coordination. We also found evidence for some structural variations, such as the addition of a phase of experimenting, as well as inter-individual variation, particularly with respect to (non-)adaptation and experimenting. Finally, an experimental study with 18-month-olds considered the phenomenon of interpersonal synchrony in development, examining its effects of self-other alignment and its links to toddlers’ development of a self concept. This study showed that interpersonal (a-)synchrony highlights the (dis-)similarity between self and other but that toddlers’ responses to it differ between measures and with their self-concept development. Overall, the findings presented in this thesis suggest that interpersonal synchrony acts as a cue to group membership by prompting a social recategorization of the self in relation to one’s movement partner(s) and that the context in which interpersonal synchrony occurs affects the way people experience the interaction.

Key words: interpersonal synchrony, joint action, subjective experience, development

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