The liberation movement

Rarely, in relationships between people, moments of grace occur where two people, or more, feel a miraculous coordination, that they are really in one mind. Prof. Uri Alon studies this phenomenon

Prof. Uri Alon and Yael Ben-Ari. Wonderful coordination

"Rarely, in relationships between people, there are moments of grace in which two people, or more, feel a miraculous coordination, that they are really in one mind. "When that happens, the breath stops," says Prof. Uri Alon from the Weizmann Institute of Science. "It happens For children who play together, for jazz players who report after the fact that 'the music played us,' even for soccer players, and also for theater players."

What, really, is going on there, in the minds of the people who are in a state of "miraculous coordination"? Prof. Alon had a moment of "miraculous coordination" with Dr. Lior Noy, in which they understood how this elusive phenomenon could be investigated ("How to create a moment like this in the laboratory, proactively?"). An original research method led them to findings that were recently published in writing - The scientific journal "Records of the Academy of Sciences of the USA" - PNAS.

The solution stemmed from the experience of Prof. Alon and Dr. Noy ​​as actors in playback theater - an improvisational theater based on stories from the audience. In theater training, actors perform a "warm-up" exercise called the mirror game. The exercise is designed to free actors, and help them create together. Dancers also usually perform it Before training, or a performance, with the aim of reaching a state of "miraculous coordination". The movements of the other - and to imitate him as accurately as possible. At the beginning of the exercise, it is determined who is imitating whom, or, in the words of the actors, who is the leader and who is being led. After a while, the director instructs to switch roles, and in the third stage nothing is determined: the two actors act opposite each other , when it is not defined who leads and who is led, this is the stage where the "miraculous coordination" sometimes takes place.

Prof. Alon and Dr. Noy ​​decided to approach the question with a classical physical approach: if a certain system is too complex for us to investigate in a controlled manner, it is possible to use a model with a reduced number of dimensions, and try to tap from it what takes place in the more complex system. Thus, instead of a system (theater actors, for example), which operates in the three dimensions of space and in the dimension of time, they decided to settle for a system that would operate in one of the dimensions of space, and in the dimension of time A kind of game board on which two handles are installed, each of which can move along a straight slot, and the two players move the handles when one of them leads and the other is led, thus, until the stage where they operate without a pre-defined who leads and who is led. In the facility, the scientists tested actors with improvisation experience (theater actors, jazz players, etc.), as well as inexperienced actors.

The experienced players managed to create quite complex movements, even though they only had one of the dimensions of space at their disposal. They reached the peak of complexity and coordination at a stage where it was not defined who was leading and who was being led. The scientists precisely measured the distance between the handles of the two players, the degree of coordination between them when stopping, and more. This is how it turned out, that in the phases where it is defined who leads and who is led, it is possible to notice a kind of "vibration" with a frequency of two to three hertz in the movement speed of the led player around the movement of the leader. On the other hand, when there is no defined leader and led, the two players can enter a situation where they move the handles in smooth movements without vibration, in "miraculous coordination". The movement looks like two leaders agreeing on a complex future movement.

On the other hand, in the group of inexperienced players, not defining a leader and a led caused an uncoordinated and hesitant movement. When there was a defined leader, their performance improved.

As a basis for understanding the coordination phenomenon, the scientists developed a mathematical model, similar to control systems for tracking a moving target. "The model contains two main factors," says Prof. Alon, "one predicts the movement of the 'target', and the other controls it - corrects mistakes between what is desired and what is found. The internal controller has a rate constant that causes vibration at a frequency of two to three hertz. When we activated two Such models played against each other, the two 'contracts' came together in a kind of 'miraculous coordination', while the two critics canceled out. The result was obvious: the movement of both converged into a smooth, complex and coordinated movement, without a trace of the 'vibration' of the visitors."

Following this research, a theater laboratory was established at the Weizmann Institute, where scientists and actors work together. The intention is to enable a controlled scientific investigation of complex phenomena in human behavior and relationships between people, using concepts and tools developed in the theater world.