Frontal alpha oscillations distinguish leaders from followers: Multivariate decoding of mutually interacting brains

Konvalinka, Ivana; Bauer, Markus; Stahlhut, Carsten; Hansen, Lars Kai; Roepstorff, Andreas; Frith, C. D.

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.03.003

Cited by 193 publications

(237 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…These results also confirmed previous findings (26)(27)(28)34) that neural activity (as well as interactive communication behaviors) could be used to differentiate reliably the leaders from the followers. It is worth noting that different studies have found different earliest time points for successful discrimination based on neural activity: before the onset of the interactions in Sänger et al (26,27) and Konvalinka et al (34) and about half a minute into the interaction in our study. One possible explanation of these variations is that the time point for successful discrimination depends on how the leaders emerge.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…One possible explanation of these variations is that the time point for successful discrimination depends on how the leaders emerge. In Sänger et al (26,27), leaders were assigned a priori; in Konvalinka et al (34), leaders emerged through a number of repeated trials; and, in the present study, leaders emerged during a single LGD task. Future research should specifically examine the role of neural activity or INS in predicting different types of leader emergence.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 57%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Leader emergence through interpersonal neural synchronization

Jiang

Chen

Dai

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

258

254

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The neural mechanism of leader emergence is not well understood. This study investigated (i) whether interpersonal neural synchronization (INS) plays an important role in leader emergence, and (ii) whether INS and leader emergence are associated with the frequency or the quality of communications. Eleven three-member groups were asked to perform a leaderless group discussion (LGD) task, and their brain activities were recorded via functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-based hyperscanning. Video recordings of the discussions were coded for leadership and communication. Results showed that the INS for the leader-follower (LF) pairs was higher than that for the follower-follower (FF) pairs in the left temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), an area important for social mentalizing. Although communication frequency was higher for the LF pairs than for the FF pairs, the frequency of leaderinitiated and follower-initiated communication did not differ significantly. Moreover, INS for the LF pairs was significantly higher during leader-initiated communication than during follower-initiated communications. In addition, INS for the LF pairs during leaderinitiated communication was significantly correlated with the leaders' communication skills and competence, but not their communication frequency. Finally, leadership could be successfully predicted based on INS as well as communication frequency early during the LGD (before half a minute into the task). In sum, this study found that leader emergence was characterized by highlevel neural synchronization between the leader and followers and that the quality, rather than the frequency, of communications was associated with synchronization. These results suggest that leaders emerge because they are able to say the right things at the right time.eadership is a ubiquitous feature of all social species, including human and nonhuman animals (1, 2). However, the neural mechanism of leader emergence is still not well-understood. Evolutionary theories suggest that, whereas both human and nonhuman animals have evolved tendencies to compete for dominance over access to survival-related resources (3-5), human leaders also play an important role in maintaining group cohesion (6). Thus, human leaders need to take into account not only their own needs but also the needs of their followers to facilitate cooperation among group members (7-9). Interestingly, recent imaging evidence indicates that the neural activities of two individuals are more synchronized when they perform a cooperative rather than a competitive task (10). Moreover, the level of interpersonal neural synchronization (INS) is closely associated with the level of understanding between partners (11). It is unknown, however, whether INS is involved in leader emergence.Previous evidence has shown that communication plays an important role in the increase of INS (12). However, the role of communication in leader emergence has been extensively debated. On the one hand, the so-called "babble" hypothesis postulates that the most t...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 57%

Leader emergence through interpersonal neural synchronization

Jiang

Chen

Dai

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

258

254

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The benefits of EEG include high temporal resolution, relatively low cost, and high portability, enabling naturalistic experimental setups and simultaneous measurements from more than two subjects. Consequently, EEG hyperscanning has been applied to study the brain basis of people's tendency to mutually adapt to each other's rhythm during motor tasks (see, e.g., Dumas et al, 2010;Konvalinka et al, 2014) and speech (Kawasaki et al, 2013).…”

Section: Eeg-to-eegmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Konvalinka and colleagues (Konvalinka et al, 2014) employed such approaches to dual-EEG recordings to predict whether the subjects were following mutual synchrony in finger tapping or following a computer metronome. Selecting appropriate features (evoked responses, amplitude envelopes of on-going oscillations, etc.)…”

Section: The Challenge Of Interpreting 2pn Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Centrality of Social Interaction in Human Brain Function

Hari

Henriksson

Malinen

et al. 2015

Neuron

303

221

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People are embedded in social interaction that shapes their brains throughout lifetime. Instead of emerging from lower-level cognitive functions, social interaction could be the default mode via which humans communicate with their environment. Should this hypothesis be true, it would have profound implications on how we think about brain functions and how we dissect and simulate them. We suggest that the research on the brain basis of social cognition and interaction should move from passive spectator science to studies including engaged participants and simultaneous recordings from the brains of the interacting persons.

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“…The synchronized finger-tapping task was also used by Konvalinka et al (18), who examined leader–follower interaction through dual electroencephalographic recordings. Participants had to adjust their finger-tapping patterns either to each other or to a computer metronome.…”

Section: Pn: Principles and Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Two-Person Neuroscience and Naturalistic Social Communication: The Role of Language and Linguistic Variables in Brain-Coupling Research

García

Ibáñez²

2014

Front. Psychiatry

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Social cognitive neuroscience (SCN) seeks to understand the brain mechanisms through which we comprehend others’ emotions and intentions in order to react accordingly. For decades, SCN has explored relevant domains by exposing individual participants to predesigned stimuli and asking them to judge their social (e.g., emotional) content. Subjects are thus reduced to detached observers of situations that they play no active role in. However, the core of our social experience is construed through real-time interactions requiring the active negotiation of information with other people. To gain more relevant insights into the workings of the social brain, the incipient field of two-person neuroscience (2PN) advocates the study of brain-to-brain coupling through multi-participant experiments. In this paper, we argue that the study of online language-based communication constitutes a cornerstone of 2PN. First, we review preliminary evidence illustrating how verbal interaction may shed light on the social brain. Second, we advance methodological recommendations to design experiments within language-based 2PN. Finally, we formulate outstanding questions for future research.

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Frontal alpha oscillations distinguish leaders from followers: Multivariate decoding of mutually interacting brains

Cited by 193 publications

References 71 publications

Leader emergence through interpersonal neural synchronization

Leader emergence through interpersonal neural synchronization

Centrality of Social Interaction in Human Brain Function

Two-Person Neuroscience and Naturalistic Social Communication: The Role of Language and Linguistic Variables in Brain-Coupling Research

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