Interactive brains, social minds

Abstract

To reveal the neural and behavioral dynamics of social interaction, single-person studies are increasingly complemented by research designs that simultaneously assess two or more interacting individuals. In this article, we review studies on neural mechanisms and markers of social interactions that use multi-person functional magnetic resonance imaging and electrophysiological recordings. We propose a terminology for investigating social interaction dynamics, show how forward models of action regulation may serve as a framework for investigating interpersonal action coordination and discuss different methodological approaches to studying functional brain connectivity.

Keywords::

• EEG and fMRI hyperscanning
• action coordination
• functional brain connectivity
• phase synchronization
• social cognition
• social interaction