1. Modeling Multi-Agent Coordination
As part of University of Cincinnati’s Center for Cognition, Action and Perception, my PhD training focused on using the nonlinear time series methods of complex dynamical systems to understand patterns that emerge in participants’ movements during joint actions tasks such as collective dance, walking in groups, and collision avoidance.
Richardson et al. (2015)
Selected Publications
Chauvigné, L. A., Walton, A., Richardson, M. J., & Brown, S. (2019). Multi-person and multisensory synchronization during group dancing. Human movement science, 63, 199-208. [click here for pdf]
Kiefer, A. W., Rio, K., Bonneaud, S., Walton, A., & Warren, W. H. (2017). Quantifying and modeling coordination and coherence in pedestrian groups. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 949. [pdf]
Richardson, M. J., Harrison, S. J., Kallen, R. W., Walton, A., Eiler, B. A., Saltzman, E., & Schmidt, R. C. (2015). Self-organized complementary joint action: Behavioral dynamics of an interpersonal collision-avoidance task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance , 41(3), 665. [pdf]
2. Music Improvisation
My master’s research explored coordination in improvised musical performance to understand how co-performers simultaneously engage in both musical perception and action to construct and negotiate the flow of the performance from moment-to-moment. The movements of their heads and wrists were recorded during joint improvisation sessions and I applied nonlinear time series analysis to characterize differences in coordination when they were provided different backing tracks, and different visual information about their co-performers.
Corroboration of the quantitative and qualitative findings revealed that the less constrained backing tracks resulted in more coordination in body movement and musicians reported experiencing more creative freedom.
Selected Publications
van der Schyff, D., Schiavio, A.,Walton, A., Velardo, V., Chemero, A. (2018). Musical Creativity and the Embodied Mind Exploring the possibilities of 4E Cognition and Dynamical Systems Theory. Music and Science. [pdf]
Walton, A., Richardson, M., Langland-Hassan, P., Chemero, A., & Washburn, A. (2018). Creating time: affording social collaboration in music improvisation.Topics in Cognitive Science. [pdf]
Walton, A., Richardson, M., Langland-Hassan, P., & Chemero, A. (2015). Improvisation and the self-organization of multiple musical bodies. Frontiers in Psychology: Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology.[pdf]
3. Affordance Perception
As an undergraduate I began working as a research assistant at the Center for Cognition, Action and Perception where I investigated the role of movement and sports experience on how accurately individuals perceive the affordances, or action capabilities, of others. Using a motion-tracking system we created point light displays of people walking, and participants with varying levels of athletic experience viewed the videos and predicted how far and how high they thought the individual could jump.
Weast et al. (2013)
Selected Publications
Weast, J. A., Walton, A., Chandler, B., Shockley, K. & Riley, M. (2013). Essential Kinematic Information, Athletic Experience and Affordance Perception for Others. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 21, 1-7. [pdf]
© Ashley Walton 2022
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