Brain-to-brain coupling: a mechanism for creating and sharing a social world.
Cognition materializes in an interpersonal space. The emergence of complex behaviors requires the coordination of actions among individuals according to a shared set of rules. Despite the central role of other individuals in shaping one's mind, most cognitive studies focus on processes that occur within a single individual. We call for a shift from a single-brain to a multi-brain frame of reference. We argue that in many cases the neural processes in one brain are coupled to the neural processes in another brain via the transmission of a signal through the environment. Brain-to-brain coupling constrains and shapes the actions of each individual in a social network, leading to complex joint behaviors that could not have emerged in isolation.
Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA. hasson@princeton.edu
Uri
U
Hasson
Asif A
AA
Ghazanfar
Bruno
B
Galantucci
Simon
S
Garrod
Christian
C
Keysers
D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D009633:Nonverbal Communication / Q000502:physiology*; D012919:Social Behavior; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*