things that made me go "hmmmm" - Synchrony & Group Cohesion

"It should be clear by now that it is impossible to synchronize two events unless a rhythm is present. Rhythm is basic to synchrony. This principle is illustrated by a film of children on a playground. Who would think that widely scattered groups of children in a school playground could be in sync? Yet this is precisely the case (reported here in slightly revised form from _Beyond Culture_). One of my students selected as a project exercise in what can be learned from film. Hiding in an abandoned automobile, which he used as blind, he filmed children playing in an adjacent school yard during recess. As he viewed the film, his first impression was the obvious one: a film of children playing in different parts of the school playground. Then watching the film several times at different speeds - a practice I urge all my students to use - he began to notice one very active little girl who seemed to stand out from the rest. She was all over the place. Concentrating on that little girl, my student noticed that when she was near a cluster of children the members of the group were in sync not only with each other but with her. Many viewings later, he realised that this girl, with her skipping and dancing and twirling, was actually orchestrating movements of the entire playground! There was something about the pattern of movement which translated into a beat - like a silent movie of people dancing. Furthermore, the beat of this playground was familiar! There was a rhythm he had encountered before. He went to a friend who was a rock music aficionado, and the two of them began to search for the beat. It wasn't long until the friend reached out to a nearby shelf, took down a cassette and slipped it into a tape deck. That was it! It took a while to synchronize the beginning of the film with the recording - a piece of contemporary rock music - but once started, the entire three and a half minutes of the film clip stayed in sync with the taped music! Not a beat or a frame of the film was out of sync."

_The Dance of Life : The Other Dimension of Time_ by Edward T. Hall. pp154-5. Doubleday: New York, 1983.