Dance Movement Therapy: Interpersonal Synchrony Simulator

Session Controls

Mirroring / coupling strength K 1.20

Natural rhythm mismatch Δω 0.60

Spontaneity / noise 0.15

Live Readouts

Synchrony r0%

Relative phase Δθ

0.0°

Session time

0.0 s

Therapeutic engagement

Cue boost

idle

How it works

In dance/movement therapy (DMT), interpersonal movement synchrony — how tightly two people's rhythmic motion locks together — is used as an observable marker of therapeutic attunement and alliance. This simulator models the patient and therapist as two coupled phase oscillators (a Kuramoto model), the standard mathematical description of entrainment between rhythmic movers:

dθ_p/dt = ω_p + K·sin(θ_t − θ_p) + noise
dθ_t/dt = ω_t + K·sin(θ_p − θ_t) + noise

Synchrony index:  r = | (e^(iθ_p) + e^(iθ_t)) / 2 |   (0 = uncoupled, 1 = perfectly in phase)

Each dancer's swaying, stepping and arm-swing motion in the scene is driven directly by their own phase angle θ, so you can literally watch two independent rhythms pull into alignment (or drift apart) as the equations evolve.

Mirroring / coupling K — how strongly each mover adjusts toward the other's phase, i.e. how actively the therapist mirrors the patient's movement (and vice versa). Higher K locks the pair together faster.
Rhythm mismatch Δω — the difference in each mover's natural tempo. Larger mismatch needs more coupling to overcome, exactly as in real entrainment dynamics.
Spontaneity / noise — random phase perturbation representing natural movement variability; too much noise prevents stable lock-in even at high coupling.
Guided Cue — a short, therapist-initiated boost to K, modelling a deliberate synchronizing prompt (a shared breath, a called-out beat) used in real DMT sessions.
Therapeutic engagement — the running time-average of the synchrony index r, a simple proxy for cumulative rapport built up over the session.

Patient Therapist

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