Two ways to measure interpersonal synchrony in dance/movement therapy: Comparing accelerometer data with observational data

Abstract

Moving in synchrony with others is associated with heightened social engagement and cooperation between individuals. Creative arts-based approaches such as dance/movement therapy (DMT) incorporate nonverbal techniques to develop interpersonal synchrony and group cohesion, and to enhance kinesthetic empathy. While DMT commonly uses Laban Movement Analysis (LMA), an analytical assessment system to observe and interpret movement, it is subject to personal bias and observer fatigue. Therefore, our goal was to explore the utility of the accelerometer to objectively measure rhythmic synchrony (RS) and spatial synchrony (SS) with 14 middle school students during 10 weekly group DMT sessions and to examine changes in mean scores for RS and SS over three time points. A wrist-worn accelerometer and Laban Movement Analysis (LMA), were used to measure RS and SS between individuals in each group. Biometric and observational data were compared to observe trends between both data sets. Participants’ subjective experiences of wearing the device during movement were also investigated. Although no statistical significance was found in IS scores across groups, in comparing the two data sets, overall biometric scores of RS increased marginally between the three time points, and overall observational scores notably increased between T1 and T2 and decreased between T2 and T3. Group 2 demonstrated similar upward trends in both data sets. This study is the first to investigate the useability of the accelerometer to measure interpersonal synchrony in DMT. Although the findings are encouraging, further investigation is needed to provide definitive information on the usefulness of the accelerometer in this context. Limitations and suggestions for future research are included.