Attentional load associated with performing and stabilizing preferred bimanual patterns

This study aimed to determine whether the stability of preferred coordination patterns could be modified intentionally and whether such stabilization involved an additional attentional load. Eight participants performed in-phase and anti-phase bimanual coordination patterns, a reaction time (RT) task, and several dual tasks (coordination + RT) that manipulated attentional priority by requiring either shared attention, priority to the coordination task, or priority to the RT task. Results showed that RT was smaller for in-phase than anti-phase. Moreover, attentional manipulations led to a trade-off between pattern stability and RT performance. This suggests that performing and intentionally stabilizing a coordination pattern incur a central cost that depends on the coordination pattern's dynamic properties. Thus, this study opens a conceptual and methodological bridge between information processing and dynamic approaches to coordination.