mutually reinforcing leading to

mutually reinforcing leading to synchrony. In any dynamic social situation observing one person’s action can initiate neural activity in another. Parts of the observer’s motor system become activated, making it possible to respond in synchrony. In fact, the specific actions that are observed are not as important as the perceived goals or intentions of the observed person. One consequence of this is that a person is sensitive to new actions in the social environment. A second is that significant actions by another person can quickly produce complementary motor responses. Thus, adaptive social behavior is a product of perceptual monitoring and motor processes. The complexity of the social environment necessitates selective responding to socially significant features of any social interaction. Such selective responding depends on the observer having particular goals for action. The identification of significant stimuli (e.g., a threatening backhand smash) activates in the competitor’s brain goal-driven decision processes that operate in parallel with continuous social monitoring and lead to a counteraction (e.g., a defensive lob) produced by the motor system. However, a linesman collecting a ball during a tennis match does not constitute a significant action for the competition and, even if observed, does not initiate any counteraction. Let us now return to the perspective of a spectator at the tennis match. While the specific movements driving the tennis match have significant implications for the players’ actions, these movements have a different implication for the spectator from whom no overt responses are warranted. If an observed action produced by someone Page |6l else does not have personal significance for an observer, the motor system does not respond in the same way at all’. The goal-dependent aspect of observing the actions of others allows us to understand and respond quickly and effectively without confusing what we do with what we see. However, in some special cases, when a group of individuals all respond together, the same motor system may operate differently. It is in these situations when we are neither observer nor respondent but part of a flock or chorus that our sense of individuated self may begin to dissolve into the larger social group. The Social Parameters for Suspended Self-Consciousness The dissolution of self-other boundaries is likely to be manifest under a specific set of conditions, which includes a strong feeling of identification with (i.e., connection between) oneself and a group of others, the absence of constraints to action by oneself or the observed others, a common goal shared by the group, and the absence of a recognized external synchronizing signal to which one can attribute any synchronized behavior. Clapping in unison following a rousing performance is amore common example. This remarkable phenomenon is evidenced despite considerable individual differences in clapping tempos. The transition to entrained clapping, whereby each clapper affects the surrounding other clappers both locally and globally, enhances the noise intensity at the moment of the clapping even though it leads to a decrease in the overall average noise intensity in the room. Synchronized behavior occurs rhythmically and one way of capturing its regularities is to model its cycles, periods, frequencies, and amplitudes '”. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_021307