Listening to and mimicking respiration: Understanding and synchronizing joint actions

The relation between action and respiration has received broad attention in the field of sport psychology since several psycho-physiological studies provided evidences about the mutual influences between respiration and performance management: breathing appears to be entrained to synchronous motor processes and to influence in return both rhythm and precision of simultaneous actions (Raßler, 2000; Raßler & Kohl, 1996, 2000). The degree of coordination between movement and respiration is affected by several factors such as movement rate (Bechbache & Duffin, 1977; Bonsignore, Morici, Abate, Romano, & Bonsignore, 1998; Ebert, Raßler, & Hefter, 2000; Jasinskas, Wilson, & Hoare, 1980) and work rate (Bernasconi & Kohl 1993; Jasinskas et al., 1980; Raßler & Kohl, 1996): generally, higher movement rates and load levels enhance entrainment (Loring, Mead, & Waggener, 1990). Other studies have focused on the influence of mental tasks on respiration, describing in particular the effects of focused attention (Mador & Tobin, 1991; Wientjes, Grossman, & Gaillard, 1998), reaction tasks (Boiten, 1998), and arithmetic and logical tasks (Grossman & Wientjes, 2001; Vlemincx, Taelman, De Peuter, Van Diest, & Van Den Bergh, 2011). Results provide evidences that mental tasks influenced respiration in different ways. Experimental tasks however were not so definite as to allow the identification of the effects of discrete mental functions on respiration. Moreover, it’s hard to isolate the impact of the emotional responses elicited by the tasks on the resulting breathing patterns. While many studies have dealt with individual sport performances providing useful information on how to develop respiration trainings aimed at enhancing endurance, strength, precision, and concentration in athletic performance, less attention has been brought to the study of respiration in synchronized joint actions. If respiration actually provides useful cues about action timing and physical and mental effort, breathing together could be an effective way to improve atunement and synchronization between agents, in particular in team sports that require a high degree of synchronization. Performers engaged in highly synchronized activities like rowing, dancing, or playing music are often trained to rely on breathing sounds as a signal to coordinate reciprocal actions but there is poor scientific literature about Raffaella Pellegrini, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Largo A. Gemelli 1, 20123 Milan, Italy. E-mail: [email protected] (the address for correspondence);