Teams peak when body movements synchronize

Toronto: From walking to talking to producing music, different people's movements occur at different speeds but a new study has found that a group can improve its performance by having people with similar movement rates.

"We found that pairs of musicians (pianists) with similar rates of solo music performance are better at synchronising the timing of tone onsets during piano duets than partners with different solo performance rates," said one of the researchers Caroline Palmer, professor at McGill University in Montreal in Canada.

"We think this could extend to interpersonal synchrony in other fields, such as recreational activities like jogging, where health benefits may be greatest when partners are matched for rates,” Palmer noted. The research team found that solo rates are a stable predictor of coordination between individuals.

They found no group differences in other factors known to influence coordination, such as years of musical training and age at which pianists started musical training. This suggests that solo rates are the only difference in partners' duet coordination between matched and mismatched pairs.