The Content, Development and Use of Shared Task Representations during the Selection and Planning of Joint Actions

Many of the actions that humans perform everyday are completed with co-actors. Cognitive theories of joint action posit that shared task representations form during joint actions and that these representations help co-actors anticipate and monitor each other’s actions. However, due to the paucity of research where co-actors have to select, plan and execute actions while attempting to achieve a shared goal, there are many unanswered questions concerning how shared task representations contribute to joint actions. The common coding theory of perception and action was used to develop hypotheses concerning the content, development and use of shared task representations. To test these hypotheses, seven experiments were completed that required pairs of individuals to perform sequential joint actions. The investigation of the response selection and planning of the initiator revealed information pertaining to the content, development and use of shared task representations. The main conclusions drawn from the research are that: 1) shared task representations contain social factors that influence the motor strategy; 2) individuals can represent the difficulty associated with their co-actor’s action and select and plan actions that make their co-actor’s task easier; 3) individuals can represent multiple potential actions, and multiple features of those actions, and use information derived from the simulation of those actions during response selection and planning; 4) individuals can adopt multiple frames of reference so that they can plan actions based on information derived from allocentric, egocentric and other-person body-centered frames of reference; 5) shared motor representations are limited in content in comparison to individual motor representations; and 6) the content and use of shared task representations are enhanced by visual feedback, anticipatory motor planning and first-hand motor experience. The findings of this dissertation provide significant contributions to theories of how shared task representations facilitate the achievement of shared goals in joint actions.Ph.D