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PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Hum. Neurosci.
Sec. Cognitive Neuroscience
Volume 18 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2024.1385624
This article is part of the Research Topic Interpersonal Synchrony and Network Dynamics in Social Interaction: Volume II View all 5 articles

Measuring information alignment in hyperscanning research with representational analyses: Moving beyond interbrain synchrony

Provisionally accepted
Manuel Varlet Manuel Varlet *Tijl Grootswagers Tijl Grootswagers
  • The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Hyperscanning, which enables the recording of brain activity from multiple individuals simultaneously, has been increasingly used to investigate the neuropsychological processes underpinning social interaction. Previous hyperscanning research has primarily focused on interbrain synchrony, demonstrating an enhanced alignment of brain waves across individuals during social interaction. However, using EEG hyperscanning simulations, we here show that interbrain synchrony has low sensitivity to information alignment across people. Surprisingly, interbrain synchrony remains largely unchanged despite manipulating whether two individuals are seeing same or different things at the same time. Furthermore, we show that hyperscanning recordings do contain indices of interpersonal information alignment and that they can be captured using representational analyses. These findings highlight major limitations of current hyperscanning research and offer a promising alternative for investigating interactive minds.

    Keywords: hyperscanning, EEG, Interbrain synchrony, social interaction, Representational alignment, Information content

    Received: 13 Feb 2024; Accepted: 16 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Varlet and Grootswagers. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Manuel Varlet, The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.