Objectives

Social neuroscience today indicates a level of synchronization between two people speaking with one another as well as two people exposed to a shared external stimulus. Exploratory research over the past 50 years indicates anomalous correlations between the brains of bonded pairs (people in a relationship) sans shared stimulus and sans colocation. This research will use the latest in brain to brain hyperscanning technology and artificial intelligence to rigorously validate or invalidate such prior findings.

Hypotheses

• Synchrony (intrabrain and interbrain) occurs between people when they interact
• This synchrony is stronger between people with personal attachment than with strangers
• This synchrony is stronger face to face than by video in the strangers but less strong in the bonded pairs (given the familiarity factor)
• When exposed to mental intention from one participant to the other, a statistically significant real-time remote communication link (remote synchronization) exists between bonded pairs of people in different rooms with no shared stimulus, a link that goes beyond memory and is stronger in bonded pairs than strangers
• When exposed to a flash of light in the eyes of one participant, not the other, a statistically significant real-time remote communication link (remote synchronization) exists between bonded pairs of people in different rooms with no shared stimulus, a link that goes beyond memory and is stronger in bonded pairs than strangers
• There may be synchrony in HRV and skin conductance, in addition to the EEG hyperscanning (exploratory measures)

These novel use cases will all be analyzed with a statistical computational model and artificial intelligence which corrects for factors like shared environment and shared tasks in order to separate signal from noise through use of simulations on a high performance computing cluster

Participants (In Process)

• 40 bonded pairs in a relationship (80 participants total) diverse across gender, age, and social bonds across states of rest, light stimulation, face to face communication, remote video communication, mental intention, evoked pain, interoception, and rest once again with real time EEG, respiration, heart monitoring, and skin conductance monitoring

Expected Outcomes (In Process)

• One of the most rigorous brain to brain synchronization studies ever done, exceeding others in sample size (at 40 vs dozens), sample composition (controlling for social bonds), stimulus sophistication, superior control (intermittent light stimulation), and quality of EEG data
• Combined results of a computational model and empirical measures to test and claissify the strength of social bonding to determine which factors most drive interbrain connectivity and which are brain similarity vs. information exchange based as well as explore directional vs. nondirectional interbrain connectivity and any causal inferences resulting from this
• A set of critical resources and state of the art tools to help grow the field of social neuroscience, including the world’s largest open access database of hyperscanning EEG recordings with the most up to date algorithm for interbrain communication normalization and detection