Bridging the gap between emotion and joint action

Research agenda for progressing our currently incomplete understanding of the interplay between sensori-motor synergies and emotion (inner ring), requiring (middle ring): revisions of established synchronization models, machine learning modeling of socio-motor interaction, emotion propagation models and (intra-)individual (IEMS) and (inter-)group (GEMS) emotional motor signature (EMS) models at multiple timescales (outer ring) to successfully extract emotion-specific qualities (multi-dimensional and multi-temporal characteristics) in behavioral and physiological signals. Images: AI by flaticon.com (photo3idea_studio). [Display omitted] •Emotion and joint action are deeply entangled, but disconnected in current research.•This disconnection spans over neuroscience, affecting computing, and robotics.•Ability to read emotions and act with others shows developmental and neural overlap.•Integrative approaches are proposed on emoted embodied joint action.•Research avenues in five different areas describe how to bridge the identified gap. Our daily human life is filled with a myriad of joint action moments, be it children playing, adults working together (i.e., team sports), or strangers navigating through a crowd. Joint action brings individuals (and embodiment of their emotions) together, in space and in time. Yet little is known about how individual emotions propagate through embodied presence in a group, and how joint action changes individual emotion. In fact, the multi-agent component is largely missing from neuroscience-based approaches to emotion, and reversely joint action research has not found a way yet to include emotion as one of the key parameters to model socio-motor interaction. In this review, we first identify the gap and then stockpile evidence showing strong entanglement between emotion and acting together from various branches of sciences. We propose an integrative approach to bridge the gap, highlight five research avenues to do so in behavioral neuroscience and digital sciences, and address some of the key challenges in the area faced by modern societies.