Abstract
<p>In real-time embodied collaboration, partners occupying distinct vantage points capture only local projections of the system state. When these projections conflict—for instance, when one partner perceives “pushing” while the other perceives “being pulled”—both may mistake locally valid experience for complete truth, falling into a structural illusion. Whether and how collaborators can transcend these perspectival limits through dialogue, when physical repositioning and direct perceptual sharing are infeasible, remains theoretically under-addressed.Using partnered dance as a model system, this multi-case qualitative study recruited four established dyads who completed a standardized task and participated in dyadic synchronized video-stimulated recall interviews. Grounded in a phenomenologically-dialogical epistemology, we employed a three-tiered analytical framework—thematic content, interaction process, and identity-narrative analysis—to analyze approximately 320 minutes of recorded interview data, with segments containing perceptual divergence (totaling ~58 minutes across 16 segments) subjected to full micro-level dialogical coding.Four major findings emerged. First, perceptual divergence reflects each partner conflating a local projection with a complete system description, signaling temporary breakdown of pre-reflective intercorporeality. Second, partners exhibited two qualitatively distinct pathways: adversarial persistence, where dialogue stagnated in repetitive cycles of negation, and integrative co-construction, where partners collaboratively discovered the partiality of their perceptions and generated emergent understanding. Third, integrative co-construction followed a recurrent six-phase micro-structure: Divergence Exposure, Pause-and-Inquiry, Individual Retrospection, Difference Localization, Emergent Reframing, and New Consensus Formation. The Pause-and-Inquiry phase—marked by clarificatory questioning—emerged as the critical juncture determining whether dialogue stalled or pivoted toward co-construction. Fourth, cognitive advancement co-evolved with partnership identification: integrative co-construction simultaneously accomplished cognitive restructuring and psychological safety restoration through shared humor and the reframing of divergence from a “relational problem” to an “information differential.”This study articulates the micro-mechanisms of dialogical emergence, revealing a transcendence paradigm of collaborative learning—a mode in which breakthrough arises from jointly discovering perspectival limits and generating new understanding within dialogical tension. We propose collaborative epistemic restructuring as a supplement to socially shared regulation of learning and advocate shifting shared mental models research from consensus-presupposition toward difference-management.</p>