Why Do Hesitation and Collision Behaviors Occur in a Cooperative Pair Performing a Choice-Reaction Task?

In team sports, hesitation occurs when teammates make way for each other, and collision occurs when they crash into each other. The current study investigated reasons of these failures by focusing on the effect of the location of a target and the participants’ intentions on the failures. Ten and 6 pairs performed a choice-reaction task in cooperation in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively. Participants were told that they had to push a flashing button as quickly and accurately as possible and that either member could push. In Experiment 1, the distance between participants and the target (equal /unequal) and the location of the target (on the diagonal line between participants /on the off-diagonal line) were independent variables, and the number of failures were dependent variables. After completing the task, they participated in a semi-structured interview. In Experiment 2, the distance between participants and the target (equal /unequal) and the target row (center row/other rows) were independent variables. Quantitative analyses revealed that hesitations were triggered by the target in the center row. Qualitative analyses revealed that the failures have a connection with various reasons such as the target’s location and participants’ personality; moreover, the failures are divided into hesitation and collision according to the participants’ attitudes to the failures and their visual perception of their partner and the target.