Interpersonal synchronization of inferior frontal cortices tracks social interactive learning of a song.

Cooperation makes two less-creative individuals turn into a highly-creative pair.

When individuals interact with others, perceived information is transmitted among their brains. The EEG-based hyperscanning technique, which provides an approach to explore dynamic brain activities between two or more interactive individuals and their underlying neural mechanisms, has been applied to study different aspects of social interactions since 2010. Recently there has been an increase in research on EEG-based hyperscanning of social interactions. This paper summarizes the application of EEG-based hyperscanning on the dynamic brain activities during social interactions according to the experimental designs and contents, discusses the possibility of applying inter-brain synchrony to social communication systems and analyzes the contributions and the limitations of these investigations. Furthermore, this paper sheds light on some new challenges to future EEG-based hyperscanning studies and the emerging field of EEG-based hyperscanning for pursuing the broader research field of social interactions.

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Interactive Brain Activity: Review and Progress on EEG-Based Hyperscanning in Social Interactions.

This study investigated how cooperative and competitive interaction modes affect the group creative performance. The participants were recruited as dyads to solve 2 problems either demanding divergent thinking (alternative uses task, AUT) or not (object characteristic task, OCT). The dyads solved 1 of the 2 problems in the cooperative mode and the other in the competitive mode. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-based hyperscanning was used to record their neural activities in the prefrontal and right temporal-parietal junction (r-TPJ) regions. Results revealed the dyads showed higher AUT fluency, AUT originality, OCT fluency, and cooperation level in the cooperative mode than in the competitive mode. The fNIRS data revealed increased (task-baseline) interpersonal brain synchronization (IBS) in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (r-DLPFC) and r-TPJ, only for dyads in the AUT/cooperation condition. In both r-DLPFC and r-TPJ, the IBS of dyads in the AUT/cooperation condition was stronger than in the AUT/competition and OCT/cooperation. Moreover, a stronger IBS was evoked between the regions in prefrontal and posterior temporal regions in the AUT/cooperation condition, as compared with the competition mode. These findings suggest that enhanced IBS may underlie the positive effects of cooperation as compared with the competition in terms of group creativity.

Cooperation Makes a Group be More Creative.

An emerging body of hyperscanning functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) research shows interbrain neural synchrony (IBS) during different forms of social interaction. Here we review the recent literature and propose several factors that facilitate IBS, leading us to ask the following question: In a world full of people and opportunities to synchronize with them, what directs our neural and behavioral alignment with anyone specific? We suggest that IBS between what we deem the "mutual social attention systems" of interacting partners-that is, the coupling between participants' temporoparietal junctions and/or prefrontal cortices-facilitates and enhances the ability to tune in to the specific interaction, its participants and its goals. We propose that this process is linked to social alignment, reinforcing one another to facilitate successful and lucrative social interactions. We further suggest that neurochemical mechanisms of dopamine and oxytocin underlie the activation of this suggested loop. Finally, we suggest possible directions for future studies, emphasizing the need to develop a brain-to-brain neurofeedback system with IBS between the mutual social attention systems of the participants as the direct regulating target.

Hua Xue

Papers

Cooperation makes two less-creative individuals turn into a highly-creative pair.

Cooperation Makes a Group be More Creative.

Enhancing creativity: Proper body posture meets proper emotion