Hans’s Overall Engagement in Mirroring

Hans followed the instructions to lead and follow, while often simultaneously appearing to the raters to be not very emotionally engaged. The raters described his relationship to his partners differently in the different roles: more attentive to his partner when following, regularly looking around the room for movement inspiration while leading, and at times turning away and disengaged from his partner during the open dance segments (see Table 2). There were, however, moments when he appeared to be more emotionally engaged with his partner and responsive in his movement, particularly when he smiled and laughed during variations on a movement theme led by Carina, his usual DMT student partner.

Table 2 Description of Hans’ process through the different mirroring tasks and change over the DMT sessionsInter-rater Reliability

There was strong inter-rater reliability between the three raters who scored affective engagement ICC(2,3) = 0.833, 95% CI [0.777, 0.877] and flow of the interaction ICC(2,3) = 0.808, 95% CI [0.711, 0.876]. For the secondary scales, there was moderate to strong agreement between the two raters for distraction ICC(2,2) = 0.713, 95% CI [0.595, 0.796] and restrictive/sensory seeking movements ICC(2,2) = 0.663, 95% CI [0.525, 0.761]. The two DMT student raters for Hans’ videos had strong inter-rater reliability for rhythmic synchrony: ICC(2,20) = 0.862, 95% CI [0.642, 0.947], all other forms of synchrony were dropped prior to final analyses (see Table 1).

Attention, Distraction, and Sensory Seeking Behavior Scales

Hans was scored as distracted or briefly distracted in several of the videos of him leading and all of the open-ended dance videos. When following or engaged in interactive behaviors, Hans was only scored as briefly or possibly distracted a few times. In the qualitative descriptions, the raters described more nuances in his attention and distraction by discriminating between engagement in movement and attention to the partner and how this impacted the interaction. This will be discussed in more detail below. Hans was not seen to use repetitive/sensory seeking movements.

Change Over Time

Graphs of Hans’s scores over the eight recorded sessions, show no obvious change to interaction quality or synchrony (see Fig. 1). However, if the graph is drawn to include only the five sessions when Hans was partnered with his usual partner, Carina, almost all the curves are smoother with less session-by-session variation. When Hans was leading, there was a stark difference in the synchrony scores depending on the partner, with high synchrony scores in his sessions with Carina and low synchrony scores in sessions with all other partners. The synchrony in the leading videos was created largely by the one following, and Carina, with her DMT training, followed closely while Hans’ other partners were often not as good at mirroring his movements, or had a time lag when following him. This difference in skill with mirroring between Carina and Hans’ other partners may also be reflected in the greater variation in scores in the other dances, but there the specific role of the partner is less clear. The fluctuating scores and qualitative descriptions of the partnerships suggest that movement and interpersonal style of the different partners may have obscured any change over time across the full ten weeks, therefore change over time was also examined over just the weeks Hans was partnered with Carina.

Fig. 1

Hans’ synchrony and interaction quality scores over time. Note The left graph depicts all videotaped sessions while the right graph depicts just the sessions with his usual partner, Carina. Each graph is divided into four parts: the uppermost box shows Hans’ scores when he was following his partner’s movements; the second box shows his scores when he was leading the mirroring activity; the third box shows his scores during a song when he was given open-ended instructions to remain in contact with his partner while moving as he wished; and the bottom box “purposive sample” shows his scores during a videoclip that the researcher selected for his most interactive behaviors during any of these activities. The y-axis indicates his score on the scale with each of the scales scored from 0 to 4 with 4 indicating the most synchrony, affective engagement, or flow of the interaction. The x-axis is labeled with the session number. The open-ended dance segment was missing for the first session due to videographer error and no video was available on sessions 2 and 4. Flow of the interaction was not scored in the leading and following videos. Flow of the interaction and affective engagement show similar scores and trajectories when both were rated. There is less variation in the scores when looking at only the sessions he was partnered with Carina and a slight upward trend in the open-ended dance of these sessions only

Visual inspection of the graphs for just the weeks he was partnered with Carina shows a slight upward trend in affective engagement, flow of the interaction, and synchrony in the open dance segments over time. Each of these scales was tested for correlation between the session number and score on the scale by segment type for the five sessions with Carina only (see Table 3). For the open-ended dance sessions with Carina only, Hans showed a statistically significant increase in affective engagement over time and a high, but non-significant, increase in flow of the interaction over time. There were no significant correlations when the sessions with the other partners were included.

Table 3 Hans change in synchrony and interaction quality with Carina, his usual partnerDifferent Partners, Different Levels of Success

The different partners played a major role in the interactions and movement in the partnered dances with Hans. Qualitative descriptions of patterns of movement, attention, or engagement reoccurred across video clips with the same partners. Raters at times explicitly described an aspect of the interaction or movement by stating “as with other clips with this partner.” The raters’ descriptions suggest that the increased interaction quality in the open dance segments with Carina may be connected with the development of a movement relationship with the use of a shared movement theme, which did not exist with the other partners. The raters saw signs of trust and responsivity in Hans’ videos with Carina. This started with a mention of trust in one of the raters’ descriptions of their first session together and increased with more mentions of trust and a stronger affective connection by session seven.

Correlations Between Synchrony and Interaction Quality

To investigate the relationship between Hans’ synchrony and interaction quality, his scores were correlated and the qualitative descriptions were examined for discussion of this topic. These correlations were run with the videos of him leading and following grouped together and separately the videos of him engaged in the open-ended dance and more interactive videos. The decision was made to run the correlations this way because of the small sample size and the contrasting descriptions of the different patterns of engagement in the more structured mirroring tasks compared to the open-ended dance and interactive clips. The flow of the interaction was not scored in the leading and following video clips as the descriptions of the levels did not make sense when only following or only leading. There was a strong and significant positive correlation between affective engagement and flow of the interaction showing a strong relationship between these variables (see Table 4). There was a moderate to strong positive correlation between synchrony and flow of the interaction for the videos of the open-ended dance and interactive behaviors. There was a significant positive correlation between synchrony and affective engagement when the less structured open-ended dance and videos selected for interaction were combined, but not for the more structured following or leading segments. Few of the qualitative descriptions described the synchrony between Hans and his partners. In only one session did a rater link Hans’ movement synchrony to affective engagement, stating that: the “partners seem to be in synchrony also at an emotional level, interaction seems to have the [peak] level at the same time, crescendo in excitement.”

Table 4 Correlations between synchrony and interaction quality for HansContrasts Between His Attention, Engagement in Movement Tasks, and Social Interactions

Overall, Hans consistently followed the instructions to lead and follow and continued moving with only brief pauses during the open-ended dance. The quantitative ratings of attention showed that Hans was generally attentive when following and interacting, and his attention shifted more when he was leading or doing the open-ended dance. The raters often referenced attention or distraction when discussing the interaction quality or synchrony between Hans and his partners. He was more often described as attentive than distracted, but distraction did occasionally cause delays in his following: “Carina then moves to a reaching type motion, but Hans stays with the former motion for a few seconds before realizing she has changed (he is distracted).” The qualitative descriptions suggest that even when attentive, he often mirrored with minimal outward expression and little emotional engagement except when Carina led their playful movement phrase. One rater described Hans’ following in the first session: “he does not seem terribly enthusiastic, but is paying attention to the direction of the motions and does a good job of imitating them.” In the less directive open-ended dance segments, with the instructions to move as they liked while staying in contact with the partner, Hans often seemed cooperative but somewhat lost, not very creative or enthusiastic in his movements, and even more disengaged from his partners. Any break in a social connection appeared to end the interaction, without Hans initiating anything to continue the engagement. For example, during the open-ended dance, a couple of his other partners sometimes looked away or did their own thing while Hans was looking at them. Rather than waiting for these partners to look back or initiating something himself, Hans responded by disengaging and doing his own movements, becoming unavailable to reconnect when the partner returned and tried to re-engage him.

In later sessions, Hans did socially and emotionally engage in some more short interactions with his partners. These interactions, however, appeared to mostly be led by his partners, especially Carina, and he rarely added anything to develop the theme or interaction further himself. In his eighth session, some raters thought that Hans may have attempted to recapture the attention of another partner through the use of clear slow movements. This interpretation was not shared by all of the raters and Hans did not speak to her or add other nonverbal cues to further support reengaging her, although he did continue to look in her direction. His partner Carina, in contrast, was repeatedly able to capture Hans’ attention and engagement through the playful movement theme she introduced in session 5 and they consistently both laughed when she tricked him by varying the tempo. In their last session together, Hans lead some elements of this game, but only for a very short time and he appeared less emotionally engaged than when he followed her.

Hans’ Movement Patterns and Movement in the Partnership

Hans’ movements were described by student raters and not individuals certified in movement observation. This included psychology students who described their observations without any training in movement observation tools and DMT students after two courses in LMA and KMP and rater training for this study.

Hans’ coordination, movement repertoire, and ability to follow his partners’ movements all seemed somewhat improved in the final two weeks of the intervention (see Table 5). Despite his difficulty with performing some movements, Hans attempted to follow almost every movement his partners led. Hans appeared to have difficulty following movements that were: (a) fast, (b) continuous, since he tended to make abrupt transitions, or (c) involved moving the arms and legs together, as he seemed to need more time to figure out how to follow these. Hans’s coordination did seem to improve slightly over the intervention as he showed better coordination between his arms and legs in the final session than at any other time. By the last two sessions, however, Hans seemed more confident in following a variety of movements and appeared to have more enjoyment in following movements that were moderately challenging.

Table 5 Hans’ coordination and movement repertoire when leading over the course of the intervention

Several weeks of following his partners’ movements seemed to support Hans in expanding his own movement repertoire. After weeks of leading mostly slow arm movements while standing in place and holding his neck and torso stiff, Hans appeared to start to integrate a few movements from others into his own dancing. Some of the raters noted an increase his movement repertoire in the last two weeks.

While all the raters described times when Hans and his partners had matched or mismatched movement qualities, the two sets of raters used different language to describe this. The raters for the interaction quality scales, described differences in the dyad’s movement qualities in terms of relative enthusiasm, size, or intensity. The DMT student raters, described differences in movement qualities using more specific terms from either LMA or KMP. A word search showed that the DMT student raters never used the word enthusiasm, while the raters for the interaction scales used the word enthusiasm or enthusiastic 15 times. In the videos when Hans was following or engaged in the open-ended dance, the raters sometimes found Hans “less graceful,” “less enthusiastic,” not as “exuberant” or “joyful” as his partner. In the videos selected for interactions, there were generally more descriptions of Hans and his partners matching movement qualities than mismatching movement qualities. The DMT student raters frequently listed occurrences of matching and mismatching movement qualities between Hans and his partners using LMA or KMP terms, but without enough context, description, or duration to understand how this might have influenced the interaction. In one session, the raters described that Hans did not stretch to use as large a kinesphere as his partner and that he was less grounded when he shifted his weight. Hans and his first partner’s movement qualities were very similar, with each leading similar slow arm movements using bound neutral flow. In the sessions with Carina, the raters listed that Hans and this partner sometimes shared: direct or indirect movements, moments of acceleration and/or deceleration and sometimes moments of lightness. They rarely described Hans as using strength (see Table 6).

Table 6 Discussion of movement qualities across a larger sample of participants