Doing what everybody does? A procedure for investigating behavioural synchronization

Behavioural synchronization means that the behaviour of several individuals is related in time. They may show the same behaviour either at the same time (synchrony) or explicitly at different moments (anachrony). Here, a procedure is presented, which not only allows quantitative investigation of behavioural synchronization in groups of any size, but also a separate evaluation with respect to each individual and behaviour pattern. The method distinguishes between the purely descriptive degree of concurrence and the degree of synchrony, which takes into account synchrony or anachrony occurring by chance on the basis of particular behaviour frequencies. Some recommendations for the application of the procedure are given and its limitations discussed. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.