A team of sports scientists and cognitive biologists at the University of Vienna has demonstrated in a new study that solving a task together can promote spontaneous movement synchronization. Such synchronization serves as a kind of “social glue” and plays an important role in the social functioning of communities. To better understand this mechanism, the researchers examined how working on a jigsaw puzzle together influenced movement synchronization during trampoline jumping. The results showed that pairs who had worked together on a puzzle subsequently displayed greater synchronization on the trampoline than pairs who had worked on the puzzle individually. Initial mutual rapport also had a positive effect. The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE.
