Brain-to-Brain Synchrony Tracks Real-World Dynamic Group Interactions in the Classroom

• DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.04.002
• Publication Date: 2017-04-27T12:00:23Z
• Authors: Suzanne Dikker; Lu Wan; Ido Davidesco; Lisa Kaggen; Matthias Oostrik; James McClintock; Jess Rowland; Georgios Michalareas; Jay J. Van Bavel; Mingzhou Ding; David Poeppel
• Keywords: Male; classroom engagement; brain synchrony; portable EEG; Schools; educational neuroscience; 4. Education; 05 social sciences; social neuroscience; group affinity; Brain; Electroencephalography; 3. Good health; oscillations; real-world experimentation; Humans; Female; Interpersonal Relations; 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences; hyper-scanning; Social Behavior

The human brain has evolved for group living [1Dunbar I.R. social hypothesis.in: Cacioppo J.T. Foundations in Social Neuroscience. MIT Press, 2002: 69-88Google Scholar]. Yet we know so little about how it supports dynamic interactions that the study of real-world exchanges been dubbed "dark matter neuroscience" [2Schilbach L. Timmermans B. Reddy V. Costall A. Bente G. Schlicht T. Vogeley K. Toward a second-person neuroscience.Behav. Brain Sci. 2013; 36: 393-414Crossref PubMed Scopus (890) Google Recently, various studies have begun to approach this question by comparing responses multiple individuals during variety (semi-naturalistic) tasks [3Babiloni F. Astolfi neuroscience and hyperscanning techniques: past, present future.Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 2014; 44: 76-93Crossref (289) Scholar, 4Dmochowski J.P. Bezdek M.A. Abelson B.P. Johnson J.S. Schumacher E.H. Parra L.C. Audience preferences are predicted temporal reliability neural processing.Nat. Commun. 5: 4567Crossref (164) 5Dumas Nadel J. Soussignan R. Martinerie Garnero Inter-brain synchronization interaction.PLoS ONE. 2010; e12166Crossref (495) 6Hasson U. Ghazanfar A.A. Galantucci Garrod S. Keysers C. Brain-to-brain coupling: mechanism creating sharing world.Trends Cogn. 2012; 16: 114-121Abstract Full Text PDF (545) 7Hari Himberg Nummenmaa Hämäläinen M. Parkkonen Synchrony brains bodies implicit interpersonal interaction.Trends 17: 105-106Abstract (67) 8Jiang Chen Dai Shi Ding Liu Lu Leader emergence through synchronization.Proc. Natl. Acad. USA. 2015; 112: 4274-4279Crossref (168) 9Pfeiffer U.J. Frith C.D. Schilbach Towards interaction.Front. Hum. Neurosci. 7: 22Crossref (30) 10Stephens G.J. Silbert L.J. Hasson Speaker-listener coupling underlies successful communication.Proc. 107: 14425-14430Crossref (546) 11Babiloni Buffo P. Vecchio Marzano N. Del Percio Spada D. Rossi Bruni I. Rossini P.M. Perani Brains "in concert": frontal oscillatory alpha rhythms empathy professional musicians.Neuroimage. 60: 105-116Crossref (84) 12Duan R.N. Xiao X. Sun P.P. Li Z. Zhu C.Z. Cluster imaging multi-brain networks (CIMBN): general framework modeling interacting brains.Front. 9: 267Crossref (28) 13Hasson Nir Y. Levy Fuhrmann Malach Intersubject cortical activity natural vision.Science. 2004; 303: 1634-1640Crossref (1063) 14Nummenmaa Glerean E. Viinikainen Jääskeläinen I.P. Hari Sams Emotions promote interaction synchronizing across individuals.Proc. 109: 9599-9604Crossref (287) 15Dikker Zevin J.D. On same wavelength: predictable language enhances speaker-listener brain-to-brain synchrony posterior superior gyrus.J. 34: 6267-6272Crossref (71) These experiments reveal stimulus properties [13Hasson Scholar], individual differences [14Nummenmaa contextual factors [15Dikker Scholar] may underpin similarities people. However, most date suffer from limitations: they often lack direct face-to-face between participants, typically limited dyads, do not investigate dynamics time, and, crucially, rarely behavior under naturalistic circumstances. Here extend such experimentation drastically, beyond dyads laboratory walls, identify markers engagement interactions. We used portable electroencephalogram (EEG) simultaneously record class 12 high school students over course semester (11 classes) regular classroom activities (Figures 1A–1C; Supplemental Experimental Procedures, section S1). A novel analysis technique assess group-based coherence demonstrates extent which is synchronized predicts both student dynamics. This suggests possible marker interactions, likely driven shared attention mechanisms. validates promising new method ecologically settings.