When our hearts beat together: Cardiac synchrony as an entry point to understand dyadic co‐regulation in couples

Abstract

The degree to which romantic partners' autonomic responses are coordinated, represented by their pattern of physiological synchrony, seems to capture important aspects of the reciprocal influence and co‐regulation between spouses. In this study, we analyzed couple's cardiac synchrony as measured by heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV). A sample of 27 couples (N = 54) performed a structured interaction task in the lab where they discussed positive and negative aspects of the relationship. During the interaction, their cardiac measures (HR and HRV) were recorded using the BIOPAC System. Additional assessment, prior to the lab interaction task, included self‐report measures of empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index and Interpersonal Reactivity Index for Couples) and relationship satisfaction (Revised Dyadic Adjustment Scale). Synchrony computation was based on the windowed cross‐correlation of both partner's HR and HRV time series. In order to control for random synchrony, surrogate controls were created using segment‐wise shuffling. Our results confirmed the presence of cardiac synchrony during the couple's interaction when compared to surrogate testing. Specifically, we found evidence for negative (antiphase) synchrony of couple's HRV and positive (in‐phase) synchrony of HR. Further, both HRV and HR synchronies were associated with several dimensions of self‐report data. This study suggests that cardiac synchrony, particularly, the direction of the covariation in the partners' physiological time series, may have an important relational meaning in the context of marital interactions.

Nonverbal Synchrony in Couple Therapy Linked to Clients’ Well-Being and the Therapeutic Alliance

“…Using non-absolute values (Z noabs ) enables distinguishing between in-phase synchrony (i.e., both participants' movements are positively correlated) and anti-phase synchrony (i.e., both participants' movements are negatively correlated: when one is moving more the other one is moving less). Both absolute and non-absolute cross-correlations and in-phase and anti-phase synchrony of datasets have been interpreted by Tschacher and Meier (2020) and Coutinho et al (2021). To investigate whether synchrony occurred above chance level, surrogate datasets were created by shuffling the segments of the original data from the two time series, aligning segments that never occurred at the same time.…”

Adolescent girls’ intrapersonal and interpersonal parasympathetic regulation during peer support is moderated by trait and state co‐rumination

“…For example, positive physiological synchrony has been shown in mother–child dyads with mothers who overstimulate their child, a situation which contributes to the child's emotion dysregulation (e.g., Field, 2007; Papoušek, 2007). Similarly, couples during conflict tasks also show positive physiological synchrony (Butler & Randall, 2013; Coutinho et al., 2020). Along these lines, Butler and Randall (2013) suggest that physiological synchrony in dyadic interactions may be beneficial when partners help stabilize each other around an optimal set point (i.e., morphostatic synchrony), but synchrony can also interrupt regulatory processes when it results in leading each other away from an optimal setpoint (i.e., morphogenic synchrony; also see Helm et al., 2014).…”

Exploring the “Dark Matter” of Social Interaction: Systematic Review of a Decade of Research in Spontaneous Interpersonal Coordination

“…Thus, imitative gestures can appear after a lag of several seconds. In contrast, interactional synchrony relies on temporal matching, encompassing behavioral (e.g., gestures and speech) and physiological coupling, such as heart rate, skin conductance, or inter-brain synchronization (Dumas et al, 2010;Coutinho et al, 2019Coutinho et al, , 2021. Despite the attempt to delineate behavioral matching from interactional synchrony, the threshold separating these two concepts is not well-defined, and most studies use different time lags for assessing these phenomena (from 0.04 to 4 s), leading to conflation of these two constructs (Schoenherr et al, 2019).…”

“…Recent observations stress the role of contextual and social cues that influence interpersonal coordination (Heyes, 2018;Levy and Bader, 2020). In-group membership or preexisting acquaintance (e.g., friendship) and affective bonds (e.g., romantic partners) are known to increase interpersonal coordination (Coutinho et al, 2019(Coutinho et al, , 2021, while lack of relatedness such as out-group membership tends to decrease behavioral synchrony (Miles et al, 2011). Moreover, deficits in interpersonal coordination might be the results of inter-individual processes rather than sole intra-individual mechanisms, stressing the need to go beyond neurocognitive explanations (Bolis et al, 2017).…”

“…Although joint action research overlaps with interpersonal coordination, and the two are often combined in the same experimental setting, it includes a more extensive range of actions that require shared goal-oriented motor coordination, such as synchronizing to the same external stimuli (e.g., metronome) or producing a specific sequence of gestures (e.g., moving an object from one location to another) rather than spontaneous spatiotemporal behavioral matching. Finally, previous studies investigated the emergence of physiological or facial signatures of mutual attunement among pre-acquainted individuals such as romantic partners (Coutinho et al, 2019(Coutinho et al, , 2021, parent-infant interactions (Feldman, 2007) and in collective activities such as musical ensembles (Keller, 2014) or sports (Zumeta et al, 2016). Consequently, this review will focus on the motor correlates of spontaneous interpersonal coordination in dyads among strangers to better understand the processes involved in impromptu interactions in daily life.…”