Dataset Information

Information flow between interacting human brains: Identification, validation, and relationship to social expertise.

ABSTRACT: Social interactions are fundamental for human behavior, but the quantification of their neural underpinnings remains challenging. Here, we used hyperscanning functional MRI (fMRI) to study information flow between brains of human dyads during real-time social interaction in a joint attention paradigm. In a hardware setup enabling immersive audiovisual interaction of subjects in linked fMRI scanners, we characterize cross-brain connectivity components that are unique to interacting individuals, identifying information flow between the sender's and receiver's temporoparietal junction. We replicate these findings in an independent sample and validate our methods by demonstrating that cross-brain connectivity relates to a key real-world measure of social behavior. Together, our findings support a central role of human-specific cortical areas in the brain dynamics of dyadic interactions and provide an approach for the noninvasive examination of the neural basis of healthy and disturbed human social behavior with minimal a priori assumptions.

SUBMITTER: Bilek E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4413334 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Information flow between interacting human brains: Identification, validation, and relationship to social expertise.

Bilek Edda E Ruf Matthias M Schäfer Axel A Akdeniz Ceren C Calhoun Vince D VD Schmahl Christian C Demanuele Charmaine C Tost Heike H Kirsch Peter P Meyer-Lindenberg Andreas A

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20150406 16

Social interactions are fundamental for human behavior, but the quantification of their neural underpinnings remains challenging. Here, we used hyperscanning functional MRI (fMRI) to study information flow between brains of human dyads during real-time social interaction in a joint attention paradigm. In a hardware setup enabling immersive audiovisual interaction of subjects in linked fMRI scanners, we characterize cross-brain connectivity components that are unique to interacting individuals, i ...[more]

PMID: 25848050

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Project description:BackgroundCommunicating official public health information about infectious diseases is complicated by the fact that individuals receive much of their information from their social contacts, either via interpersonal interaction or social media, which can be prone to bias and misconception.ObjectiveThis study aims to evaluate the effect of public health campaigns and the effect of socially communicated health information on learning about diseases simultaneously. Although extant literature addresses the effect of one source of information (official or social) or the other, it has not addressed the simultaneous interaction of official information (OI) and social information (SI) in an experimental setting.MethodsWe used a series of experiments that exposed participants to both OI and structured SI about the symptoms and spread of hepatitis C over a series of 10 rounds of computer-based interactions. Participants were randomly assigned to receive a high, low, or control intensity of OI and to receive accurate or inaccurate SI about the disease.ResultsA total of 195 participants consented to participate in the study. Of these respondents, 186 had complete responses across all ten experimental rounds, which corresponds to a 4.6% (9/195) nonresponse rate. The OI high intensity treatment increases learning over the control condition for all symptom and contagion questions when individuals have lower levels of baseline knowledge (all P values ≤.04). The accurate SI condition increased learning across experimental rounds over the inaccurate condition (all P values ≤.01). We find limited evidence of an interaction between official and SI about infectious diseases.ConclusionsThis project demonstrates that exposure to official public health information increases individuals' knowledge of the spread and symptoms of a disease. Socially shared information also facilitates the learning of accurate and inaccurate information, though to a lesser extent than exposure to OI. Although the effect of OI persists, preliminary results suggest that it can be degraded by persistent contradictory SI over time.

Dataset Information

Information flow between interacting human brains: Identification, validation, and relationship to social expertise.

Publications

Information flow between interacting human brains: Identification, validation, and relationship to social expertise.

Similar Datasets

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