Such behavioral synchrony, research shows, makes us more trusting, helps us bond and turns up our sociable instincts. In one study, dancing in sync made participants feel emotionally close to one another — much more so than groups that moved asynchronously. In another study, participants who chanted words rhythmically were more likely to cooperate in an investment game. Even a simple walk in unison with a person from an ethnic minority can reduce prejudice (View Highlight)
When our movements coordinate, myriad synchronizations invisible to the naked eye also arise inside our bodies. When people drum together, their hearts beat together. The heart rates of therapists and their patients can sync up during sessions (especially if the therapeutic relationship is working well), and those of married couples can too. Other physiological processes, such as our breathing rate and skin conductance levels, may also line up with those of other people. (View Highlight)
Given that synchrony is “so widespread across so many different species,” he recalled, “I thought: ‘OK, then there might be some very simple way to explain it.’” Novembre and his colleagues set up an experiment, published last summer, in which pairs of volunteers did nothing but sit facing each other while camera equipment tracked the movements of their eyes, face and body. Sometimes the volunteers could see one another; at other times they were separated by a partition. The researchers found that as soon as the volunteers looked each other in the eyes, their brain waves instantly synced up. Smiling proved even more powerful in aligning brain waves (View Highlight)
In one study, published in late 2022, Dumas and his colleagues measured the brain activity of mothers and their preteen children when they communicated through online video. The pairs’ brains barely synchronized, much less so than when they talked in person. Such poor interbrain synchrony online could help explain why Zoom meetings tend to be so tiring, according to the study’s authors (View Highlight)