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The current studies explore the informational basis of the coupling in human rhythmic movement coordination tasks. Movement stability in these tasks is an asymmetric U-shaped function of mean relative phase; 0° is maximally stable, 90° is maximally unstable and 180° is intermediate. Bingham (2001, 2004a, 2004b) hypothesized that the information used to perform coordinated rhythmic movement is the relative direction of movement, the resolution of which is determined by relative speed. We used an experimental paradigm that entails using a circular movement to produce a linear motion of a dot on a screen, which must then be coordinated with a linearly moving computer controlled dot. This adds a component to the movement that is orthogonal to the display. Relative direction is not uniquely defined between orthogonal components of motion, but relative speed is; it was therefore predicted that the …