Crowdsourcing neuroscience: inter-brain coupling during face-to-face interactions outside the laboratory

Abstract

When we feel connected or engaged during social behavior, are our brains in fact "in sync" in a formal, quantifiable sense? Most studies addressing this question use highly controlled tasks with homogenous subject pools. In an effort to take a more naturalistic approach, we collaborated with art institutions to crowd-source neuroscience data: Over the course of 5 years, we collected electroencephalogram (EEG) data from thousands of museum and festival visitors who volunteered to engage in a 10-minute face-to-face interaction. Pairs of participants with various levels of familiarity sat inside the Mutual Wave Machine-an artistic Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) installation that translates real-time correlations of each pair's EEG activity into light patterns. Because such inter-participant EEG correlations are prone to noise contamination, in subsequent offline analyses we computed inter-brain synchrony using Imaginary Coherence and Projected Power Correlations, two synchrony metrics that are largely immune to instantaneous, noise-driven correlations. When applying these methods to two subsets of recorded data with the most consistent protocols, we found that pairs' trait empathy, social closeness, engagement, and social behavior (joint action and eye contact) consistently predicted the extent to which their brain activity became synchronized, most prominently in low alpha power (~7-10 Hz) and beta oscillations (~20-22 Hz). These findings support an account where shared engagement and joint action drive coupled neural activity and behavior during dynamic, naturalistic social interactions. To our knowledge, this work constitutes a first demonstration that an interdisciplinary, real-world, crowd-sourcing neuroscience approach may provide a promising method to collect large, rich datasets pertaining to real-life face-to-face interactions. Additionally, this work is a demonstration of how the general public can participate and engage in the scientific process outside of the laboratory. Institutions such as museums, galleries, or any other organization where the public actively engages out of self-motivation, can help facilitate this type of "citizen science" research, and support the collection of large datasets under scientifically controlled experimental conditions. To further enhance the public interest for this type of out-of-the-lab experimental approach, the data and results of this study are disseminated through a website tailored to the general public ( wp.nyu.edu/mutualwavemachine ) We capitalized on recent real-world social neuroscience research (Dikker et al., 2017;

Teacher-student neural coupling during teaching and learning

“…Indeed, some have suggested that joint attention to stimulus features during processing of naturalistic stimuli may underlie coupled neural responses Dikker et al, 2019). Decreased Teacher-Student Unscrambled coupling in high-level regions, including DMN, may thus reflect lower attention rather than disrupted learning.…”

The Presence of Another Person Influences Oscillatory Cortical Dynamics During Dual Brain EEG Recording

“…Additionally, EEG hyperscanning has demonstrated interpersonal synchrony when people are performing coordinated movements (22)(23)(24)(25)(26). Importantly, correlations between participants' EEG activity may be shaped by a host of individual differences, including empathy, social closeness, and autistic traits (27,28). Clinically, hyperscanning approaches may also be especially relevant to our understanding of the neural basis of autism (12).…”

Trait mindfulness predicts inter-brain coupling during naturalistic face-to-face interactions

“…This study was conducted as part of the participatory art installation Mutual Wave Machine, a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) that translates real-time correlation of pairs’ EEG activity into light patterns (described in detail in Dikker et al, 2021; also see wp.nyu.edu/mutualwavemachine). This setup allowed us to study real-world face-to-face social interactions in a large population of participants recruited outside of the traditional research subject pool.…”

“…Using a range of metrics to quantify inter-brain connectivity (Ayrolles et al, 2021), inter-brain coupling has been linked to a variety of factors during both verbal and non-verbal social tasks (Czeszumski et al, 2020). During social interactions outside of laboratory environments, our group has previously found that inter-brain coupling is linked to social closeness, personal distress, and shared social attention (Dikker et al, 2017, 2021).…”