Science Reveals Why People Do Not Bump Into Each Other

A recent study delved into the science behind how people are able to avoid bumping into each other physically. The study, which is published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance by the American Psychological Association reveals that humans follow a specific pattern of movement to avoid collision.

Michael J. Richardson, associate professor of psychology at the University of Cincinnati, led the study which involve 12 pairs of participants who were asked to perform an activity that can test their movements. The study subjects were asked to simultaneously move objects across a computer screen that measures 50 inches. Using a hand-held motion devices, one participant was asked to move dots from the bottom-left to the top-right portion of the screen, while the partner moved from the bottom-right to the top left -- all of these to be done without bumping into each other’s objects.

The authors said that they chose this activity because such joint tasks required continuous execution of repetitive movements over time. The same repetitive movements are being performed daily by two indivuduals -- loading the diswasher with plates, stacking a pile of blocks or magazines or dancing together, the researchers noted. "These social activities, however, do not involve the incidental inphase or antiphase movement synchronization that has been the focus of previous studies of social coordination. On the contrary, they require that individuals explicitly avoid colliding into each other and establish a more complex or complementary pattern of movement coordination -- since prototypical inphase or antiphase patterns of movement coordination would result in task failure."

The authors did not give particular instructions for the participants to follow; nonetheless, it was discovered that almost all pairs had the same pattern of coordination. One participant followed a straight-line trajectory, whilst the other one veered towards the more elliptical trajectory. The authors explained that this finding suggests that the success of fulfilling the tasks are highly dependent on the participants’ discovery of this complementary solution.

The experiment was done whilst the participants stood back to back. Although they could not see each other, they could see the virtual movements of their partners. All their movements were monitored and recorded via a Polhemus FASTRAK magnetic motion system. The 24 participants are all right-handed and are college undergraduates.

In the end, the authors said that the pairs were able to finish 164 trials successfully, with an average of 11 pairs taking on 21 trials to score 15. This experiment can help to boost ongoing research pertaining to the study of schizophrenia, human interaction with robotics and sport rehabilitation, as the authors further make efforts to explain the coordination of interpersonal movement, Richardson said.

A full comprehension of normal movement dynamics can boost the diagnosis of incorrect dynamics and thus create an efficient solution, said Richardson. In this study, the researchers were able to come up with a model that identifies the behavioural motion and the reason why these behaviours exist between people performing the said tasks.

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