Herd Those Sheep: Emergent Multiagent Coordination and Behavioral-Mode Switching
Open accessAbstract
Effectively coordinating one’s behaviors with those of others is essential for successful multiagent activity. In recent years, increased attention has been given to understanding the dynamical principles that underlie such coordination because of a growing interest in behavioral synchrony and complex-systems phenomena. Here, we examined the behavioral dynamics of a novel, multiagent shepherding task, in which pairs of individuals had to corral small herds of virtual sheep in the center of a virtual game field. Initially, all pairs adopted a complementary, search-and-recover mode of behavioral coordination, in which both members corralled sheep predominantly on their own sides of the field. Over the course of game play, however, a significant number of pairs spontaneously discovered a more effective mode of behavior: coupled oscillatory containment, in which both members synchronously oscillated around the sheep. Analysis and modeling revealed that both modes were defined by the task’s underlying dynamics and, moreover, reflected context-specific realizations of the lawful dynamics that define functional shepherding behavior more generally.
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Individuals in social settings that involve cooperation quickly and automatically converge to synchrony.
“Behaviorally, individuals in social settings that involve cooperation have been shown to quickly and automatically converge to synchrony – as was the case in a “sheep herding” game in which dyads distinctly shifted from asynchrony to synchrony, which allowed for successful completion of the game68.”
From Physiological and Behavioral Synchrony Predict Group Cohesion and Performance (2020) · cites this paper as [68]
The paper’s background discussion describes spontaneous synchronization in some interpersonal rhythmic interactions, and its Results report in-phase coordination in some cooperative shepherding trials. But the Results also show that many pairs used a different strategy, while the synchronized strategy often emerged after multiple trials. The paper does not establish that people in cooperative social settings generally converge to synchrony quickly and automatically. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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- Authors
- Nalepka, P., Kallen, R. W., Chemero, A., Saltzman, E., & Richardson, M. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Cincinnati (US)
- Boston University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Richardson, Michael J.
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2017-04-04
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 630-650
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- PMC
- PMC5424702
- OpenAlex
- W2605353781
- Cited by
- 87
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 2
- FWCI
- 10.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (R01- GM105045)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Distributed Control Multi-Agent Systems
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
- Keywords
- multi-agent coordination, behavioral synchrony, emergent coordination, task dynamics, functional behavior, complex systems
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Animals, Attention, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Models, Psychological, Sheep, Social Behavior, Task Performance and Analysis, Young Adult
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