TY - JOUR

T1 - Crossmodal correspondences as common ground for joint action

AU - Schmitz, Laura

AU - Knoblich, Günther

AU - Deroy, Ophelia

AU - Vesper, Cordula

N1 - Funding Information: This work was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7-2007-2013)/Grant agreement no. 609819 (SOMICS). The authors thank the Institute of Philosophy in London and the Tate Exchange program for supporting their research. The work on this project was facilitated by a Doctoral Research Support Grant awarded to LS by the Central European University.

PY - 2021/1

Y1 - 2021/1

N2 - When performing joint actions, people rely on common ground – shared information that provides the required basis for mutual understanding. Common ground can be based on people's interaction history or on knowledge and expectations people share, e.g., because they belong to the same culture or social class. Here, we suggest that people rely on yet another form of common ground, one that originates in their similarities in multisensory processing. Specifically, we focus on ‘crossmodal correspondences’ – nonarbitrary associations that people make between stimulus features in different sensory modalities, e.g., between stimuli in the auditory and the visual modality such as high-pitched sounds and small objects. Going beyond previous research that focused on investigating crossmodal correspondences in individuals, we propose that people can use these correspondences for communicating and coordinating with others. Initial support for our proposal comes from a communication game played in a public space (an art gallery) by pairs of visitors. We observed that pairs created nonverbal communication systems by spontaneously relying on ‘crossmodal common ground’. Based on these results, we conclude that crossmodal correspondences not only occur within individuals but that they can also be actively used in joint action to facilitate the coordination between individuals.

AB - When performing joint actions, people rely on common ground – shared information that provides the required basis for mutual understanding. Common ground can be based on people's interaction history or on knowledge and expectations people share, e.g., because they belong to the same culture or social class. Here, we suggest that people rely on yet another form of common ground, one that originates in their similarities in multisensory processing. Specifically, we focus on ‘crossmodal correspondences’ – nonarbitrary associations that people make between stimulus features in different sensory modalities, e.g., between stimuli in the auditory and the visual modality such as high-pitched sounds and small objects. Going beyond previous research that focused on investigating crossmodal correspondences in individuals, we propose that people can use these correspondences for communicating and coordinating with others. Initial support for our proposal comes from a communication game played in a public space (an art gallery) by pairs of visitors. We observed that pairs created nonverbal communication systems by spontaneously relying on ‘crossmodal common ground’. Based on these results, we conclude that crossmodal correspondences not only occur within individuals but that they can also be actively used in joint action to facilitate the coordination between individuals.

KW - Common ground

KW - Communication

KW - Crossmodal correspondences

KW - Joint action

KW - Multisensory perception

KW - Social cognition

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85098818770&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103222

DO - 10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103222

M3 - Article

C2 - 33302228

AN - SCOPUS:85098818770

VL - 212

JO - Acta psychologica

JF - Acta psychologica

SN - 0001-6918

M1 - 103222

ER -