title: Neural synchronization during face-to-face communication.
abstract: Although the human brain may have evolutionarily adapted to face-to-face communication, other modes of communication, e.g., telephone and e-mail, increasingly dominate our modern daily life. This study examined the neural difference between face-to-face communication and other types of communication by simultaneously measuring two brains using a hyperscanning approach. The results showed a significant increase in the neural synchronization in the left inferior frontal cortex during a face-to-face dialog between partners but none during a back-to-back dialog, a face-to-face monologue, or a back-to-back monologue. Moreover, the neural synchronization between partners during the face-to-face dialog resulted primarily from the direct interactions between the partners, including multimodal sensory information integration and turn-taking behavior. The communicating behavior during the face-to-face dialog could be predicted accurately based on the neural synchronization level. These results suggest that face-to-face communication, particularly dialog, has special neural features that other types of communication do not have and that the neural synchronization between partners may underlie successful face-to-face communication.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Bohan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.forename: Danling
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.forename: Chaozhe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Chunming
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003142:Communication; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D059907:Functional Neuroimaging; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D019265:Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared