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Project

Objectively assessing dyadic biobehavioural synchrony via dual eye-tracking, dual EEG and ANS stress physiology recording, and detailed video monitoring

Humans are social beings by excellence. Due to the social and bodily embeddedness during early development, biological and behavioural processes become entrained and coordinated with the interacting partner. This biobehavioural synchrony is evident across behaviour, stress physiology, hormones and brain processing, and across multiple human attachment constellations (e.g., parent-infant pairs, romantic lovers, strangers). Paradoxically, however, conventional socio-affective neuroscience approaches typically examine individual humans in isolation, in very artificial non-ecological settings. Yet, recent technological advances allow us to study dyadic interactions by recording from both partners at the same time. With the present proposal, we apply for equipment that will allow us to measure eye gaze, neural processing, stress physiology, and behaviour simultaneously in two individuals while they are engaged in real-life interactions. This cutting-edge approach will introduce a paradigm shift in socio-affective research and will allow us to study how these multimodal temporal signals relate to each other (within-subject interdependency), how they relate to the multimodal signals of the interacting partner (inter-subject interdependency), and how this mutual dyadic biobehavioural attunement may be disturbed in atypical development and psychiatric conditions.
Date:1 Jan 2021 →  31 Dec 2022
Keywords:multimodal, dyadic interaction, EEG, eye-tracking, stress physiology, facial mimicry, video recording, psychopathology
Disciplines:Psychophysiology, Biological psychology, Neuroimaging, Social and emotional development, Neurocognitive patterns and neural networks, Research methods and experimental design, Group and interpersonal processes, Parenting problems, Family studies, Behavioural and emotional problems, Social perception and cognition, Biological psychiatry, Neonatology, Paediatrics, Psychopathology, Disabilities and developmental disorders