Special Issue "Synchronisation and Contagion of Mouvement and Action in Human and Non-Human Animals"

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Human-Animal Interactions, Animal Behaviour and Emotion".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 March 2022.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Florence Gaunet
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, Fédération 3C, Aix-Marseille University-CNRS, 13331 Marseille, France
Interests: dog; pets; humans; motor resonnance; social cognition; communication
Dr. Charlotte Duranton
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Ethodog, Research in Dog-Human Relationship in Ethology and Literature, Maisons-Laffitte, France
Interests: dog behavior; dog-human interaction; dog cognition; dog welfare; dog-human communication

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Social behaviors are partly driven by behavioral synchronization/mimicry/interpersonal motor alignment for dyads and can lead to collective movements at group levels. Many species are concerned, and such behaviors—and their underlying cognitive processes—can occur both within and between species. They are adaptive, with clear beneficial issues, such as decreasing predation pressure, allowing better care of offspring, and increasing social cohesion between interacting partners.

How recruitment of one or more partners operates is still unclear. Several hypotheses have been suggested, including automatic imitation, or temporal processing for detecting the timing of events and their rhythmic properties, and motor resonance/contagion, i.e., a direct link between the perception of an action and its execution (e.g., mirror neurons system). Is there any effect of ontogeny or of experience on mimicry? How did such behaviors and cognitive mechanisms evolve, and are there any differences between species? In which cases is such perception–action coupling between individuals conscious or not?

Original manuscripts that address any aspects of synchronization and contagion of movement and action in human and nonhuman animals are invited in this Special Issue, both at behavioral and cognitive process levels. Topics of special interest are behavioral synchronization/mimicry, all collective movements, social referencing, effect of leadership, effect of familiarity/affiliation/closeness/attraction, effect of the nature or size of the stimulus/model, developmental or evolutionary issues, cognitive mechanisms at play, clarification of related concepts, evaluation of the power/importance of such mechanisms, beneficial and detrimental outcomes, all this at dyadic and group levels, in laboratory or field setup, for any species. How such processes can be implemented for behavioral changes both in human and nonhuman animals (food diet, mental or motor diseases, low carbon and pro-environmental behaviors, etc.) is also of interest, as is social influence thought various media (e.g., rhythm, actual observation, video, or imagination for people). Any gesture or social behavior can be targeted, such as feeding habits, tool use, play, walk, sports, mania, fashion, commercial behaviors (selling/buying), to any good or mistreatment of animals or people.

Dr. Florence Gaunet
Dr. Charlotte Duranton
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • behavioral synchronization
  • mimicry
  • interpersonal motor alignment
  • motor contagion
  • leadership
  • affiliation
  • social cognition
  • social influence
  • development
  • phylogeny

Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
Back to TopTop