What binds us? Inter-brain neural synchronization and its implications...

What binds us? Inter-brain neural synchronization and its implications for theories of human consciousness

Ana Lucía Valencia, Tom Froese

The association between neural oscillations and functional integration is widely recognized in the study of human cognition. Large-scale synchronization of neural activity has also been proposed as the neural basis of consciousness. Intriguingly, a growing number of studies in social cognitive neuroscience reveal that phase synchronization similarly appears across brains during meaningful social interaction. Moreover, this inter-brain synchronization has been associated with subjective reports of social connectedness, engagement, and cooperativeness, as well as experiences of social cohesion and ‘self-other merging’. These findings challenge the standard view of human consciousness as essentially first-person singular and private. We therefore revisit the recent controversy over the possibility of extended consciousness and argue that evidence of inter-brain synchronization in the fastest frequency bands overcomes the hitherto most convincing sceptical position. If this proposal is on the right track, our understanding of human consciousness would be profoundly transformed, and we propose a method to test this proposal experimentally.

Moreover, a recent study revealed that participants playing a cooperation game face-to-face exhibit differences in brain-to-brain synchronization when they believe they are interacting with each other compared to when they believe their interaction is with a computer. In this experimental setup, the prompts ‘your partner is a human’ and ‘your partner is a computer’ were provided before each condition (human–human or human–machine), and every dyad went through both conditions in the same session. Even though in both conditions the interaction was with the partner, believing otherwise had a strong effect on hyper-connectivity (Hu et al. 2018). This may reflect the effects of different levels of engagement (Schilbach et al. 2013).

By eliminating Clark’s frequency-based objection, we propose that the boundaries of the conscious mind could also be subject to constant renegotiation during an individual’s interaction with his/her environment and with others, pointing to a mechanism that neurally binds us together and opens us up to an extended conscious mind in social interaction (Kelso and Engstrom 2006). 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 two distinct individuals sharing in one and the same unfolding experience (Froese 2018).

To be clear this extended mind isn't (AFAICTell) referencing Psi...but I await Max's thoughts on this at it seems to tie into some of the shared information ideas he's talked about...

...assuming I've managed to correctly grasp his ideas...

What binds us? Inter-brain neural synchronization and its implications for theories of human consciousness

Ana Lucía Valencia, Tom Froese






To be clear this extended mind isn't (AFAICTell) referencing Psi...but I await Max's thoughts on this at it seems to tie into some of the shared information ideas he's talked about...

...assuming I've managed to correctly grasp his ideas...

Yep... I think it's valuable that they point out, that we seem to forget that most studies measuring the brain (EEG, FMRI, MEG) measure single individuals. For certain studies, it does seem an interesting idea to measure more than one person at the same time, particularly if they are interacting with each other... perhaps we'll learn things that are hidden because we're just measuring a single person at a time... obviously there are practical problems... not sure that's really practical with MEG at present  .

An interesting interaction to look at is the Ouija board where there are multiple subjects; matching visual sensory data of the room; matching patterns of the Ouija board itself; the matching motor motor movements of each persons hand/arm on the puck; and all the subjects heads in close proximity to one another for easy EM field sync; and *crucially* giving-up control, because one *believes* that somebody else is moving the puck.... I'd guess if you measured everyone's brain, we could see brain activation of subjects mirroring each other very closely... with strange effects occurring. The most severe 'belief' effect being when the brain is really vulnerable (cardiac arrest), but still having sufficient firing available to synchronize it's networks with local third parties, and experiencing third parties and themselves in a strange combined way. Way beyond Ouija board level.

I mentioned this idea on SF using and example of football matches, producing attractive coherence... I reckon that's a different way of understanding the things that we do...
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threads/a-...post-86884

BUT... what those papers are talking about, does seem very 'classical physics', and 'naive realism'.... and I think we've moved on (and I've certainly moved on)