Brains Might Sync As People Interact — and That Could Upend Consciousness Research
Jul 26 2021
Conor Feehly
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/brains-might-sync-as-people-interact-and-that-could-upend-consciousness
Excerpt
People synchronize in various ways when we interact with one another. We subconsciously match our footsteps when we walk. During conversations, we mirror each other's postures and gestures.
...people synchronize heart rates and breathing when watching emotional films together. The same happens when romantic partners share a bed.
Surprisingly, people synchronize their neural rhythms, too. Researchers like Tom Froese, a cognitive scientist from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan, think that these findings could upend our current models of consciousness.
...You may have experienced this while playing music with someone and falling into rhythmic and melodic harmony. Or you may collectively solved a problem with a team. Perhaps it felt like you were operating at the same frequency — in reality, this might have not been far from the truth.
Such inter-brain neural synchronization has been observed in people engaging in meaningful interactions. But what does it actually mean?
...Froese argues that a shift in our understanding of consciousness is warranted. Namely, he supports an ‘extension of consciousness’.
Froese isn’t suggesting that consciousness lacks a neural basis; however, an individual’s neural activity is embodied in their interactions with the world. Now, we realize that other people may play a role.
The conscious mind’s boundaries could also be under constant renegotiation during exchanges with the environment and other people, Froese explained in a 2020 Neuroscience of Consciousness article. When we socialize, inter-brain synchronization neurally binds us together and extends consciousness.
Froese isn’t suggesting that consciousness lacks a neural basis; however, an individual’s neural activity is embodied in their interactions with the world. Now, we realize that other people may play a role.
The conscious mind’s boundaries could also be under constant renegotiation during exchanges with the environment and other people, Froese explained in a 2020 Neuroscience of Consciousness article. When we socialize, inter-brain synchronization neurally binds us together and extends consciousness.
“An upshot of this proposal is that it can potentially validate our most intimate experiences: When we become aware that ‘we’ are sharing a moment with someone else, it is no longer necessarily the case that we are fundamentally separated by our distinct heads — we could really be be two individuals sharing in one and the same unfolding experience,” he wrote.
Froese’s ideas build on a school of thought called complex systems theory, which would agree that consciousness emerges from multiple interacting brain networks.
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