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Emergent phenomena exhibit interesting dynamics when considered individually. The present article examines two emergent processes that could be occurring simultaneously in an intense team interaction: the emergence of leaders and the emergence of autonomic synchrony within teams making dynamic decisions. In the framework of panarchy theory and related studies on complex systems, autonomic synchrony would be a fast dynamic that is shaped or controlled by leadership emergence, which is a slower dynamic. The present study outlines three distinct statistical distributions – the swallowtail catastrophe model for phase shifts, inverse power laws that indicate fractal processes, and lognormal distributions – that are known to characterize emergent processes of different types. The objective was to determine the extent to which the two emergent processes reflected the same dynamics. Research participants were 136 undergraduates who were organized into teams of three to five members playing the computer-game Counter-Strike while wearing GSR sensors to measure autonomic arousal levels in a steady stream. After approximately two hours of interaction, team members rated each other on leadership behaviors. Autonomic synchrony was analyzed as a driver-empath process that produced individual driver scores (the total influence of one person on the rest of the group) and empath scores (the total influence of the group on one person). Results showed that leadership emergence displayed the swallowtail configuration that was consistent with prior studies. Autonomic synchrony started as a simpler process and unfolded into a swallowtail catastrophe toward the end of the experimental session. Lognormal distributions were second-best representations of all variables. Inverse power laws were least descriptive of any of the research variables. The implications of the temporal dynamics of the co-emerging processes for training and team development are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Situation awareness (SA) is a mental state that is instrumental to performance of complex dynamic tasks. SA within teams is thought to be supported by favorable social conditions within the team. The present study was organized in two parts: (a) causal relationships among SA, group cohesion, and autonomic synchrony, the latter being a fundamentally nonlinear process, and (b) the combined impact of the three variables on performance in a dynamic decisions task. Experimental conditions assessed changes in task difficulty, group size, and method of obtaining SA measures. Participants were 136 undergraduates organized into 32 teams of three to five members engaged in two matches of a first-person shooter computer game. They completed self-report measures of cohesion and SA. Synchrony was determined through time series analysis of electrodermal responses using the driver-empath framework. ANOVA results showed that cohesion and SA improved over the two matches, and SA was better in smaller groups during the second match. Synchrony was stronger in larger groups. Granger regression indicated no causal or circular relationship between SA and cohesion. Synchrony had a small positive effect on cohesion during the first match. SA had a strong negative impact on synchrony early on and dissipated afterwards. The best performing teams during the first match were those that: were larger, were measured for SA without pausing the simulation, were less synchronized, showed more accurate SA, and reported stronger cohesion. The study opens new questions concerning the role of synchrony in volatile situations and the role of automated team members operating alongside humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To further the understanding of how to build or reduce synchrony in a work team, we examined two principles for defining the optimal condition to produce or limit synchrony: (a) the empath-driver ratio (relative strength of the stronger influencer compared to the receptive strength of any member in the group), and (b) the balance between autocorrelated autonomic arousal (degree to which members' signals are independent of other group members) and the degree of influence that transfers from each group member to other group members. In study 1, we employed a series of computational simulations designed to manipulate the four variables. The results indicated that there is a four-way balance between driver strength, empath strength, autocorrelational and transfer effects among team members. The relationship between the synchronization coefficient and the empath-driver ratio was moderated by whether the group adopted a network structure for group problem solving or command-and-control. In study 2 we analyzed autonomic arousal (electrodermal response) in four teams of five participants playing a first-person shooter computer game. The correlation between the synchronization coefficient and the empath-driver ratio was 0.280 (p < .001) based on 64 pairs of observations. The relationship was moderated by both the network structure and the statistical model that one adopted to analyze dyadic relationships within the group. The implications of these relationships for a growing theory of team synchrony are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synchronization is a special case of self-organization in which one can observe close mimicry in behavior of the system components. Synchrony in body movements, autonomic arousal, and EEG activity among human individuals has attracted considerable attention for their possible roles in social interaction. This article is specifically concerned with autonomic synchrony and finding the best model for the dyadic relationships, with regard to both theoretical and empirical accuracy, that could be extrapolated to synchrony levels for groups and teams of three or more people. The four models that are compared in this study have different theoretical origins: the two-variable linear regression function, a three-parameter nonlinear regression function, the logistic map function stated in polynomial form, and the logistic map function stated as an exponential regression structure. The data for this study were electrodermal responses collected from a team of four people engaged in an emergency response simulation that produced 12 dyadic time series. Results shows strong levels of fit between the data and all four models, although there were significant differences among them. Further research directions point toward finding conditions that favor one model over another and exploring other possible nonlinear structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synchronization of autonomic arousal levels within dyads and larger teams has been associated with several types of social-behavioral outcome. One previous study reported greater physiological influence (brain activity in one area of the parietal lobe associated with verbal activity) of leaders on followers than of followers on leaders; influence was measured pairwise within triadic problem solving groups. The present study explored synchronized autonomic arousal with leadership outcomes in two experiments with group sizes of three to eight members. Drivers, who had the greatest physiological impact on other team members were consistently less like the leader of the group. Empaths, who were the most receptive to autonomic signals from others, were not consistently associated with leadership roles, although they did show sensitivity to team dynamics in their ratings of cognitive and social sources of workload. The tentative conclusion, subject to future research, is that successful leadership requires a balance between the driver and empath orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychologists have had a long-standing interest in the connections between group processes and team peformance. The biopsychosocial perspective has piqued an interest in the connection between team processes and perfbrmance and coordinated and synchronized physiological arousal levels among team members. Studies of synchronization in work teams have been stalled by the lack of a metric that captures the total synchronization within teams of three or more people. This study examined how synchronized physiological arousal does in fact connect to team performance and related group process outcomes by utilizing the SE coefficient developed by Guastello and Peressini. Forty-three groups of 3 to 8 participants (total N - 197) participated in a survival simulation. Synchronization coefficients were produced for three task segments: watching an orientation video together, an individual decision task, and a group decision task. Primary results showed: (a) Synchronization was greater in larger groups across the three task segments. (b) A combination of the three synchronization coelficients - higher during the team task and lower otherwise - was correlated with higher workload ratings for performance demands, greater team dissatisfuction. and lower demands for time-sharing between the individual and the team. (c) Team performance was best when synchrony was lower during the individual task and stronger otherwise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human dyads and larger teams tend to acquire synchronized movements and autonomic arousal levels while working together or simply socializing. The synchronization of arousal patterns is of theoretical interest for group dynamics because they may add predictive value to the dynamics of group cohesion and team performance. This study examined the four-way relationship among experimental conditions: team size, task difficulty, time pressure (betweensubjects) and subsequent experimental sessions (within-subjects). Previously, we have shown these conditions affect subjective ratings of workload that come from individual and group-level sources, synchronization of arousal, and team performance. In an experiment involving an emergency response (ER) simulation, 360 undergraduates, who were wearing electrodermal sensors, were organized into 44 teams of various sizes. Workload was experimentally varied by team size (three, four, seven or eight members), number of opponents (one or two), and time pressure; the latter was introduced sooner or later across two experimental sessions. Results showed that the experimental conditions affected synchronization levels, either at the beginning of a session or in the middle; synchronization and experimental conditions were not directly related to team performance. Subjective group workload ratings of the coordination demand of the task correlated with synchronization at the beginning of a session while team satisfaction was correlated with greater synchrony at the end of a session. The competitive nature of the ER task, as compared to strictly cooperative tasks, could be responsible for the complexity of these empirical relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The synchronization of autonomic arousal levels within dyads and larger teams has become a potentially important variable in the explanation of team performance and group processes. Synchronization research with groups of three or more members has been challenging because of limited means for quantifying relationships that are more extensive than dyads. This article presents an empirical investigation of group performance and participation using a new synchronization coefficient that is grounded in nonlinear dynamical systems theory. We introduce the concept of a driver, a person with whom the group tends to synchronize the most, and an empath, a person who is most synchronized with other team members. Fifty-five undergraduate research participants, who were organized into 11 groups of three or four participants, played six emergency response simulations against an opponent while generating electrodermal data. Results showed that greater physiological synchronization resulted from better team performance and greater participation levels. Synchronization was higher for groups of four team members compared to three. Synchronization was also observed between the opponent and team members. Further opportunities for using the synchronization coefficient in group process research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the stationarity of electrodermal time series collected in situations where turn taking in human interactions are involved. In this context, the stationarity of the time series is the extent to which a simple model can be used to fit the entire time series. The experiment involved seven participants in an emergency response simulation against one opponent. They generated 48 time series across six simulations, which were split and re-spliced to separate the team's turns and the opponent's turns. Significant differences in R2 coefficients were found for both linear and nonlinear statistical models between experimental conditions, but the difference only amounted to 3% of the accuracy of those models relative to the original data. It was thus concluded that the impact of turn taking on stationarity was a small effect at most. A comparison of synchronization coefficients for the team data, which rely on the collective accuracy of the individual time series models, indicated stronger synchronization during periods when the team was watching the opponent's actions compared to when they took their own turns. It was thus concluded, furthermore, that the common focus of attention prevailed against any non-stationarity that was introduced by turn taking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioral and physiological synchronization have important implications for work teams with regard to workload management, coordinated behavior and overall functioning. This study extended previous work on the nonlinear statistical structure of GSR series in dyads to larger teams and included subjective ratings of workload and contributions to problem solving. Eleven teams of 3 or 4 people played a series of six emergency response (ER) games against a single opponent. Seven of the groups worked under a time pressure instruction at the beginning of the first game. The other four groups were not given that instruction until the beginning of the fourth game. The optimal lag length for the teams, which appeared to be phase-locked, was substantially shorter than that obtained previously for loosely-coupled dyads. There was a complex nonlinear effect from the time pressure manipulation on the autocorrelation over time that reflected workload and fatigue dynamics that were operating. The R2 values for linear and nonlinear statistical models differed by less than .01. The average amount of influence from one ER team member to another was 4.5-4.7% of the variance in GSR readings. ER team members were classified as drivers and empaths, based on the autocorrelations and transfer influences to and from other players in the GSR time series. Empaths were rated by their peers as making more types of positive contributions to the problem solving discussions than others, and drivers received the lowest ratings. Larger Lyapunov exponents that were calculated from the GSR time series were positively correlated with individuals ' ratings of subjective workload and were negatively correlated with leadership indicators. Several directions for further research are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time series analysis is often challenged by the presence of transient functions. We examined some types of transients found in time series of events that lend themselves to symbolic dynamics analysis through the method of orbital decomposition, which is based on the principle that chaotic series arise from coupled oscillators. Synthetic data sets were constructed to study the impact of intrusive events, intrusive series, merged functions, non-coupled oscillators, and driving oscillations on the patterns of final statistics obtained from orbital decomposition analysis. Two real-world data sets - a logbook of the ritual behaviors of a patient with obsessive compulsive disorder and a time series of kill dates from an infamous serial murderer - were examined for non-ergodic properties similar to those found in the synthetic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]