Analysis of Intrapersonal Synchronization in Full-Body Movements Displaying Different Expressive Qualities

Intrapersonal synchronization of limb movements is a relevant feature for assessing coordination of motoric behaviour. In this paper, we show that it can also distinguish between full-body movements performed with different expressive qualities, namely rigidity,  fluidity, and impulsivity. For this purpose, we collected a dataset of movements performed by professional dancers and annotated the perceived movement qualities with the help of a group of experts in expressive movement analysis. We computed intrapersonal synchronization by applying the Event Synchronization algorithm to the time-series of the speed of arms and hands. Results show that movements performed with different qualities display a significantly different amount of intrapersonal synchronization: impulsive movements are the most synchronized, the fluid ones show the lowest values of synchronization, and the rigid ones lay in between.