Effective communication is a crucial factor contributing to successful collaborative problem solving (CPS) teams. Re-search in cognitive science has long shown evidence of linguistic alignment, or convergence in ways of speaking, but itsfunctional role, if any, during CPS is unknown. Based on recent theorizing, we expected that both goal-oriented dialogueand non-goal-oriented dialogue should exhibit alignment. However, if linguistic alignment contributes to effective CPS,then conversations in this context should exhibit higher levels of alignment. In this study, we compared levels of syntacticand lexical alignment between a corpus of CPS dialogue and a corpus of spontaneous dialogue. Contrary to our predic-tion, we observed that the mean lexical alignment level was lower in the CPS corpus than in the Switchboard corpus.Implications for future research into linguistic alignment in CPS are discussed.

The shape of the transition in multisensory integration between the (defensive) peripersonal space (DPPS) and the extrap-ersonal space (EPS) has recently been debated. Contributing to this discussion, we approached the DPPS-EPS transitionfrom a dynamic systems perspective. Specifically, the dynamic complexity of visuotactile reaction times to moving stimuliwas employed to evaluate the presence of phase transitions. Reecting well-established ndings on the DPPS-EPS transi-tion, we hypothesized that a phase transition would be identied for looming stimuli, but not for receding stimuli, andthat the phase transition for looming threatening stimuli would be located further away from the body than for loomingnon-threatening stimuli. Contrary to these hypotheses, we found that phase transitions for receding stimuli were moreprominent and located further away from the body than phase transitions for looming stimuli. Nonetheless, we considerthe identification of phase transitions to be a promising approach for future studies of multisensory integration.

During collaborative problem solving (CPS), coordination occurs at different spatial and temporal scales. This multiscale coordination should, at least on some scales, play a functional role in facilitating effective collaboration outcomes. To evaluate this, we conducted a study of computer-based CPS with 42 dyads. We used cross-wavelet coherence as a way to examine the degree to which movement coordination is evident at a variety of scales and tested whether the observed coordination was greater than both the amount expected due to chance and due to task demands. We found that coordination at scales less than 2s was greater than expected due to chance and at most scales (except 16s, 1m, and 2m) was greater than expected due to task demands. Lastly, we evaluated whether the degree of coherence at scales less than 2s, and the form of coordination (in terms of relative phase), were predictive of CPS performance. We found that .25s and 1s scales were predictive of performance. When including relative phase, our results suggest that higher in-phase movement coordination at the 1s scale was the strongest predictor of CPS performance. We discuss these findings and detail their relevance for expanding our knowledge on how coordination facilitates CPS.