= Joint action
<Joint action> is coordinated activity in which two or more individuals adjust their contributions in relation to one another to achieve an outcome together. The contributions need not be identical. Carrying a table, for example, requires complementary lifting forces and adjustments to a partner's timing and movements.
An illuminating contrast is between matching an external beat and coordinating with a responsive partner. Two people can follow the same metronome without responding to each other; in a duet, each may also anticipate and adjust to the other's timing. Distinguishing these arrangements helps identify what social coordination contributes beyond a shared stimulus.
One experimental approach distributes a task's responses between partners. In <Natalie Sebanz> and colleagues' 2003 study, a <spatial stimulus-response compatibility> effect appeared when a one-response task was performed beside a partner responsible for the other response, but not when it was performed alone. A single person performing both responses supplied another comparison.<Representing others' actions: just like one's own? by Natalie Sebanz and others>[Cognition 88, B11–B21; task distribution and spatial compatibility results]{ref}
Such comparisons can test whether another person's possible actions enter an individual's planning. The shared setting and the mechanism producing coordination must be distinguished: merely placing two people in the same room does not identify how they organize their actions.
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