Teams on the same wavelength perform better: Inter-brain phase synchronization constitutes a neural substrate for social facilitation

Publication date: 15 May 2017
Source:NeuroImage, Volume 152
Author(s): Caroline Szymanski, Ana Pesquita, Allison A. Brennan, Dionysios Perdikis, James T. Enns, Timothy R. Brick, Viktor Müller, Ulman Lindenberger
Working together feels easier with some people than with others. We asked participants to perform a visual search task either alone or with a partner while simultaneously measuring each participant's EEG. Local phase synchronization and inter-brain phase synchronization were generally higher when subjects jointly attended to a visual search task than when they attended to the same task individually. Some participants searched the visual display more efficiently and made faster decisions when working as a team, whereas other dyads did not benefit from working together. These inter-team differences in behavioral performance gain in the visual search task were reliably associated with inter-team differences in local and inter-brain phase synchronization. Our results suggest that phase synchronization constitutes a neural correlate of social facilitation, and may help to explain why some teams perform better than others.



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