Behavioral Dynamics and Action Selection in a Joint Action Pick-and-Place Task

Many common tasks require or are made more efficient by coordinating with others. In this paper we investigate the coordination dynamics of a joint action pick-and-place task in order to identify the behavioral dynamics that underlie the emergence of human coordination. More precisely, we introduce a task dynamics approach for modeling multi-agent interaction in a continuous pick-and-place task where two agents must decide to work together or alone to move an object from one location to another. Our aims in the current paper are to identify and model (1) the relevant affordance dynamics that underlie the selection of the different action modes required by the task and (2) the trajectory dynamics of each actor’s hand movements when moving to grasp, relocate, or pass the object. We demonstrate that the emergence of successful coordination can be characterized in terms of behavioral dynamics models which may have applications for artificial agent design.