'I was just thinking about you... when you called.'
[EN] At Scientific American, Lydia Denworth brought up an interesting topic earlier this month: The way that brain waves synchronize between two people who are communicating successfully:
Neurons in corresponding locations of the different brains fire at the same time, creating matching patterns, like dancers moving together. Auditory and visual areas respond to shape, sound and movement in similar ways, whereas higher-order brain areas seem to behave similarly during more challenging tasks such as making meaning out of something seen or heard. The experience of "being on the same wavelength" as another person is real, and it is visible in the activity of the brain.
— Lydia Denworth, "Brain Waves Synchronize When People Interact," Scientific American, July 1, 2023
For example, she tells us, "Couples exhibit higher degrees of brain synchrony than nonromantic pairs, as do close friends compared with more distant acquaintances." There’s a name for the study of such moments: collective neuroscience.
NOT A NEW DISCOVERY
Synchrony is not a brand new discovery but methods of tracking it (hyperscanning) have become more innovative in the last decade. The prospect of using synchrony to better track and understand success or failure in learning environments is attracting neuroscientists to the field. One study from the Basque research centre BCBL using electroencephalography (EEG) reported, |