Evolving perceptual biases for antisynchrony: a form of temporal coordination beyond synchrony

Many organisms coordinate their group behavior in time. On a short timescale, group vocalizations, movements or visual displays can exhibit temporal interdependence. Synchronous behavior has received significantly more attention than all other forms of animal coordination. Antisynchrony (i.e., perfect alternation) is produced in nature, but only recently perceptual biases toward antisynchrony were independently found in human infants and fiddler crabs. Here, these unrelated experiments are linked and inserted into a broader quantitative framework. Future comparative research should encompass perception of other forms of coordination across species and explanatory levels, toward an integrative neuro-evolutionary framework of temporal coordination.