Effect of different cues on spectators' synchronisation, a vibration engineering approach

The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of different cues or stimulators on the synchronisation of spectators' jumping and bobbing behaviour in grandstands, activities which are most commonly experienced by grandstands during music or sporting events. To examine the effects of various stimuli (i.e. audio, visual and tactile cues) and people's coordination without an external stimulator, different jumping and bobbing tests were carried out using a number of different metronome types. All the results were analysed by applying Fast Fourier Transform to find the frequency components of each set of data on both body motions and jumping forces. The results were then compared to observe the degree of synchrony between participants and individual persons in different situations. The results show that following the metronome beat itself, auditory, visual and tactile metronomes respectively, have the greatest effect on the synchronisation of persons. By order of effect, co-ordination between participants in the group regardless of cues, provision of auditory beat, no-metronome, tactile and visual cues, respectively have the greatest effect on people's synchronisation.