Increased or decreased? Interpersonal neural synchronization in group creation
Zheng Liang,
Songqing Li,
Siyuan Zhou,
Shi Chen,
Ying Li,
Yanran Chen,
Qingbai Zhao,
Furong Huang,
Chunming Lu,
Quanlei Yu,
Zhijin Zhou
Affiliations
Zheng Liang
Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior (CCNU), Ministry of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China; Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
Songqing Li
Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior (CCNU), Ministry of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China; Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China; College of Electronic Engineering, Naval University of Engineering, Wuhan, China
Siyuan Zhou
State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Shi Chen
Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior (CCNU), Ministry of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China; Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
Ying Li
Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior (CCNU), Ministry of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China; Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China; School of Preschool Education, Changsha Normal University, Changsha, China
Yanran Chen
Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior (CCNU), Ministry of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China; Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China
Qingbai Zhao
Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior (CCNU), Ministry of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China; Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China; Corresponding authors at: School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, 430079, China.
Furong Huang
School of Psychology, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China; Corresponding author at: School of Psychology, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China.
Chunming Lu
State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Quanlei Yu
Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior (CCNU), Ministry of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China; Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China; Corresponding authors at: School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, 430079, China.
Zhijin Zhou
Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior (CCNU), Ministry of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China; Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China; Corresponding authors at: School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, 430079, China.
Group creation is the process by which group members collaborate to produce novel and useful ideas or products, including ideas generation and evaluation. However, the interpersonal neural mechanism of group creation during natural communication remains unclear. In this study, two groups of same-sex dyads with similar individual creativity collaborated to complete the Product Improvement Task (creative condition) and the Item Purchase Plan Task (control condition), respectively. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to record both members’ neural activity in the left prefrontal (lPFC) and right temporal-parietal junction (rTPJ) regions during the task. Considering that the role asymmetry of group members may have an impact on interpersonal neural patterns, we identified leaders and followers in the dyads based on participant performance. The results showed that leaders and followers in the creative condition had significantly lower interpersonal neural synchronization (INS) in the right superior temporal gyrus-left superior frontal gyrus, right supramarginal gyrus-left superior frontal gyrus, and right supramarginal gyrus-left middle frontal gyrus than in the control condition. Partial multivariate Granger causality analyses revealed the influence between dyads was bidirectional but was significantly stronger from the leaders to the followers than the other direction. In addition, in the creative task, the INS was significantly associated with novelty, appropriateness, and conflict of views. All these findings suggest that the ideas generation and ideas evaluation process in group creation have poor interpersonal neural activity coupling due to factors such as the difficulty of understanding novel ideas. However, performances may be improved when groups can better integrate views and reach collective understanding, intentions, and goals. Furthermore, we found that there are differences in the dynamics of INS in different brain regions. The INS related to the novelty of the group creation decreased in the early stages, while the INS related to the appropriateness decreased in the middle stages. Our findings reveal a unique interpersonal neural pattern of group creation processes in the context of natural communication.
