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Evaluating the Multi-Scaled Characteristics of Rhythmic Movement

Tolston, Michael T.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1439306254

Abstract Details

2015, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: Psychology.
The objective of the present experiments was to evaluate the multi-scaled nature of human rhythmic movement with respect to simple dynamical systems and phase transitions. Experiment 1 evaluated the statistical nature of the underlying dynamics of human rhythmic movement in a golden-mean (i.e., quasiperiodic) coupling relationship with another oscillator. It was predicted that human rhythmic movement can be shown to belong to the same universality class as a sine-circle map. Participants synchronized their arm movement to a virtual quasiperiodic oscillator. Results showed that participants’ dynamics were of higher dimension than predicted, but within the range of a second order system coupled to two first order systems, and that scaling regions were wider than those predicted. These results indicate that the hypothesis was not supported under the established conditions, though local scaling was shown to have a positive relation with global dimensionality. The second experiment evaluated whether the fluctuations found in behavior during the acquisition of new cognitive structure extend to re-organizations of rhythmic behavior. A coupling was established between a virtual pendulum driven by an independent driver and the movement of each participant. Participants were tasked with coordinating with the pendulum system such that the peak amplitude of the pendulum stayed within a specified range. As the trial progressed, the coupling strength of the driver was increased in small increments to beyond the point where the combined strength of the participants’ movement and the driver was sufficient to push the pendulum out of the directed region. It was predicted that the multifractal analogue of a thermodynamic quantity would be sensitive to qualitative transitions in behavior, and that participants who underwent such transitions spontaneously, i.e., intrinsically, rather than under direction, i.e., extrinsically, would exhibit critical fluctuations, prior to undergoing qualitative changes in their movement. Results showed that participants switched to anti-phase behavior around the critical point, regardless of condition. The proposed multifractal measure was sensitive to the transition, though it did not show differences between groups. The standard deviation of the relative phase between the participants and the driver showed similar patterning to the multifractal measure, but decayed more slowly after the transition point in the intrinsic group than in the extrinsic group. This study succeeded in establishing a link between a measure with conceptual foundations in thermodynamic phase transitions and human behavior, further demonstrating the utility of multi-fractal analyses and corroborating the notion that human beings are softly-assembled, complex systems.
Kevin Shockley, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Michael Richardson, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Michael Riley, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
78 p.
Behavioral Sciences
behavior; multifractal; nonlinear; universality; rhythmic motion; dynamics

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Tolston, M. T. (2015). Evaluating the Multi-Scaled Characteristics of Rhythmic Movement [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1439306254

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Tolston, Michael. Evaluating the Multi-Scaled Characteristics of Rhythmic Movement. 2015. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1439306254.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Tolston, Michael. "Evaluating the Multi-Scaled Characteristics of Rhythmic Movement." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1439306254

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1439306254
247
© 2015, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Evaluating the Multi-Scaled Characteristics of Rhythmic Movement by Michael T. Tolston is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.