Papers by Paula Fitzpatrick
Human Movement Science, 2011
a b s t r a c t 14 Recently there has been much interest in social coordination of 15 motor movem... more a b s t r a c t 14 Recently there has been much interest in social coordination of 15 motor movements, or as it is referred to by some researchers, joint 16 action. This paper reviews the cognitive perspective's common cod-17 ing/mirror neuron theory of joint action, describes some of its lim-18 itations and then presents the behavioral dynamics perspective as 19 an alternative way of understanding social motor coordination. In 20 particular, behavioral dynamics' ability to explain the temporal 21 coordination of interacting individuals is detailed. Two experiments 22 are then described that demonstrate how dynamical processes of 23 synchronization are apparent in the coordination underlying every-24 day joint actions such as martial art exercises, hand-clapping 25 games, and conversations. The import of this evidence is that emer-26 gent dynamic patterns such as synchronization are the behavioral 27 order that any neural substrate supporting joint action (e.g., mirror 28 systems) would have to sustain.
Behavior research methods, Jan 29, 2016
Functionally stable and robust interpersonal motor coordination has been found to play an integra... more Functionally stable and robust interpersonal motor coordination has been found to play an integral role in the effectiveness of social interactions. However, the motion-tracking equipment required to record and objectively measure the dynamic limb and body movements during social interaction has been very costly, cumbersome, and impractical within a non-clinical or non-laboratory setting. Here we examined whether three low-cost motion-tracking options (Microsoft Kinect skeletal tracking of either one limb or whole body and a video-based pixel change method) can be employed to investigate social motor coordination. Of particular interest was the degree to which these low-cost methods of motion tracking could be used to capture and index the coordination dynamics that occurred between a child and an experimenter for three simple social motor coordination tasks in comparison to a more expensive, laboratory-grade motion-tracking system (i.e., a Polhemus Latus system). Overall, the resul...
Background: The processes underlying the social deficits of individuals with Autism Spectrum Diso... more Background: The processes underlying the social deficits of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are not fully understood. When human beings interact with others, we implicitly coordinate our bodies and this has been found to facilitate interpersonal connections (e.g., Lakin & Chartrand, 2003). It is possible that such social movement coordination may be an important key for increasing understanding of ASD-specific social deficits (Fitzpatrick et al., 2013). Research that provides finer grained measures of mechanisms underlying social deficits in ASD may help elucidate the contradictory research and shed light on how it is that individuals with ASD can have very real problems in naturalistic social situations even though they are able to successfully perform social experimental tasks (e.g., Klin, 2000). Objectives: This research evaluates whether fine-grained dynamical social movement coordination measures can provide insight into understanding ASD-specific social deficit...
The Journal of Educational Research, 2013
ABSTRACT
Reading and Writing, 2010
The quality of handwriting curriculum and instructional practices in actual classrooms was invest... more The quality of handwriting curriculum and instructional practices in actual classrooms was investigated in an in-depth case study of four inner city kindergarten classrooms using quantitative and qualitative methods. The handwriting proficiency of students was also evaluated to assess the impact of the instructional practices observed. The findings suggest that even though teachers employ a number of effective strategies, there is room for improvement in implementing effective, research-approved handwriting instruction. In particular, daily, explicit instruction, writing for fluency, writing from memory, and use of selfevaluation are areas that need improvement. Results indicate that the lack of emphasis on these practices impacted the quality of teaching and learning of handwriting skills. Future research is needed on the impact of teacher training, use of an assessment tool that objectively assesses students' handwriting, use of reading and handwriting curriculum that complement and reinforce one another, and the effectiveness of research-based strategies in practice.
Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 2012
Past research has revealed that natural social interactions contain interactional synchrony. The ... more Past research has revealed that natural social interactions contain interactional synchrony. The present study describes new methods for measuring interactional synchrony in natural interactions and evaluates whether the behavioral synchronization involved in social interactions is similar to dynamical synchronization found generically in nature. Two methodologies, a rater-coding method and a computational video image method, were used to provide time series representations of the movements of the co-actors as they enacted a series of jokes (i.e., knock-knock jokes). Cross-spectral and relative phase analyses of these time series revealed that speakers' and listeners' movements contained rhythms that were not only correlated in time but also exhibited phase synchronization. These results suggest that computational advances in video and time series analysis have greatly enhanced our ability to measure interactional synchrony in natural interactions. Moreover, the dynamical synchronization in these natural interactions is commensurate with that found in more stereotyped tasks, suggesting that similar organizational processes constrain bodily activity in natural social interactions and, hence, have implications for the understanding of joint action generally.
Ecological Psychology, 2010
The preschool years are an important time during which children gain proficiency using the hands ... more The preschool years are an important time during which children gain proficiency using the hands for both performatory and perceptual functions that involve dynamic (kinesthetic) touch. We evaluated dynamic touch perception of object extent and found that preschool children are able to discriminate length by dynamic touch early, but perception is not very fine-tuned and perceptual attunement to inertial characteristics increased with age. An analysis comparing the performatory and perceptual functions of the hands showed links between performance and perception in dynamic touch tasks that did not require haptic-visual correspondence. We concluded that whereas dynamic touch is functional early in the preschool years, perceptual acuity is not very precise and haptic-visual correspondence remains immature. In addition, reliance on inertial properties as information to make judgments of length emerges between 3 and 5 years and attunement to inertial properties likely continues to develop throughout childhood because perceptual judgments of 5-year-olds did not reach adult levels. Tight links between the performatory and the perceptual functions of the hand suggest this is an important avenue for future research.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2000
reported an experiment demonstrating that for occluded rods of equal mass and length but differen... more reported an experiment demonstrating that for occluded rods of equal mass and length but different diameters length perception by static holding was larger for rods of smaller diameter. They concluded that participants inferred length from illusory weight percepts. However, rods of equal mass and length that differ in diameter also differ in the eigenvalues of their respective inertia tensors. In the present experiments, the authors manipulated the diameters (Experiment 1) and the inertia! eigenvalues (Experiments 4 and 5) of statically held objects. As has been shown with wielded objects, perceived length was a function of the eigenvalues. Additional experiments failed to confirm the expectation from the weight-percept model that perceived length maps to the estimated weight (Experiments 2 and 3). Physical quantities, not psychological quantities, seem to explain length perception by static holding.
Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 1993
Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 2012
This research evaluated how the inertial properties of a tool influence tool-using actions. Grip ... more This research evaluated how the inertial properties of a tool influence tool-using actions. Grip patterns and movements of 3-, 4-, and 5year-old children and adults were recorded while hammering. Results revealed that both number of pegs driven and movement amplitude increased developmentally and changed as a function of inertial properties of the tool but other aspects of motor control (i.e., period, grip position) did not. This suggests that both children and adults were able to discriminate and modulate only those parameters that had the largest impact on performance (i.e., the delivery of force with the hammer). Even though the ability to adjust tool movements as tool characteristics change is evident during preschool years, the ability to do so did not reach adult levels and appears to continue to develop beyond preschool.
Neuroscience, 1994
Al~traet--Muscle spindles and Golgi tendon organs constitute the receptor foundation to the "musc... more Al~traet--Muscle spindles and Golgi tendon organs constitute the receptor foundation to the "muscle sense." Muscle sensitivity has long been assumed relevant to the non-visual perception of the positions and motions of the body's segments and of the properties of hand-held objects. Dynamic touch is the label given to the particular kind of tactile exteroperception that involves a non-spatial input from muscles and tendons. When a hand-held object is wielded, hefted, carried and so on, the hand movements, together with the physical properties of the object, produce torques and angular motions that change in time with the movement. There is, however, an unchanging quantity that relates the variable torques and angular motions, namely, the object's inertia for rotation about a fixed point in the wrist. Our research revealed that the non-visual perception of the length of a wielded object by dynamic touch is a function of muscular sensitivity to the principal moments or eigenvalues of the inertia tensor.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 1992
Perception of the extents of occluded rods was examined under conditions in which a rod was held ... more Perception of the extents of occluded rods was examined under conditions in which a rod was held as steadily as possible. A given rod was held horizontally, on one side of its center of mass, with one upward (U) and one downward (D) force. Extent was perceived when D and U were distributed over the surfaces of 1 hand, 2
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 1996
Nonvisual perception of a hand-held object's length through wielding is known to ... more Nonvisual perception of a hand-held object's length through wielding is known to be a function of the object's inertia tensor about a fixed rotation point in the wrist. The tensor is insufficient, however, to support perceptions of 2 different extents of an object in 2 different directions. The attitude spinor represents the tilt of the object's inertia ellipsoid relative to
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 1996
A nonlinear dynamics framework that has been applied successfully to several laboratory idealizat... more A nonlinear dynamics framework that has been applied successfully to several laboratory idealizations of rhythmic behaviors was applied to a more naturally occurring behavior, clapping. Inertial loading of limbs and frequency of oscillation were manipulated. Displacement of relative phase from perfectly in phase and the variability of relative phase, both of which are used as indexes of coordination dynamics, increased with greater inertial imbalance between limbs. Increasing frequency exaggerated these effects. These hallmark properties of coupled oscillator dynamics appeared whether or not the hands contacted, albeit with the latter condition revealing a significant asymmetry in the dynamics. Results highlight the generality of the coupled oscillator regime in interlimb coordination as well as its appropriateness for characterizing behaviors that involve contact of limb surfaces and suggest one way in which perceptual information may tune the dynamical regime.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 1998
lntra-and interpersonal interlimb coordination of pendulums swung from the wrist was investigated... more lntra-and interpersonal interlimb coordination of pendulums swung from the wrist was investigated. For both kinds of coordination, the steady state and breakdown of bimanual rhythmic coordination as indexed by the time series of the relative phase angle d~ were studied under the manipulation of coordination mode, frequency of oscillation, and the difference in the eigenfrequencies (preferred tempos) of the individual oscillating limbs. The properties observed for both intra-and interpersonal coordination were those predicted by a dynamical model of rhythmic coordination that considers the coordinated limbs coupled to be nonlinear oscillators. Using a regression method, the coupling strengths of the coupled system were recovered. As predicted by the dynamical model, the strength of the dynamic was generally greater for the in-phase than the anti-phase mode and decreased with increasing frequency. Further, the strength of the interpersonal interlimb coupling was weaker than that of intrapersonal interlimb coupling.
Human Movement Science, 2011
Recently there has been much interest in social coordination of motor movements, or as it is refe... more Recently there has been much interest in social coordination of motor movements, or as it is referred to by some researchers, joint action. This paper reviews the cognitive perspective's common coding/mirror neuron theory of joint action, describes some of its limitations and then presents the behavioral dynamics perspective as an alternative way of understanding social motor coordination. In particular, behavioral dynamics' ability to explain the temporal coordination of interacting individuals is detailed. Two experiments are then described that demonstrate how dynamical processes of synchronization are apparent in the coordination underlying everyday joint actions such as martial art exercises, hand-clapping games, and conversations. The import of this evidence is that emergent dynamic patterns such as synchronization are the behavioral order that any neural substrate supporting joint action (e.g., mirror systems) would have to sustain.
Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 2013
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) suffer from numerous impairments in social interacti... more Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) suffer from numerous impairments in social interaction that affect both their mental and bodily coordination with others. We explored here whether interpersonal motor coordination may be an important key for understanding the profound social problems of children with ASD. We employed a set of experimental techniques to evaluate not only traditional cognitive measures of social competence but also the dynamical structure of social coordination by using dynamical measures of social motor coordination and analyzing the time series records of behavior. Preliminary findings suggest that children with ASD were equivalent to typically developing children on many social performance outcome measures. However, significant relationships were found between cognitive social measures (e.g., intentionality) and dynamical social motor measures. In addition, we found that more perceptually-based measures of social coordination were not associated with social motor coordination. These findings suggest that social coordination may not be a unitary construct and point to the promise of this multi-method and process-oriented approach to analyzing social coordination as an important pathway for understanding ASD-specific social deficits.
Ecological Psychology, 1999
ABSTRACT Coordination of chest and abdominal breathing movements was examined in 30 full-term and... more ABSTRACT Coordination of chest and abdominal breathing movements was examined in 30 full-term and preterm infants at 38 weeks postconceptional age. Relative phase, a measure of chest-abdomen coordination, distinguished a group of preterm infants from older infants and also predicted scores on a neurobehavioral examination. For the preterm infants, the coordination of breathing movements was less stable and exhibited a larger relative phase lag. Coupled oscillator model predictions about the existence of stable attractors and the relation between attractor strength and phase lag were confirmed. Modeling coordination of infant breathing may provide new insights into the role of attractors in development and into the recovery of motor systems from the effects of premature birth.
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Papers by Paula Fitzpatrick