NeuResonance: Exploring Feedback Experiences for Fostering the Inter-brain Synchronization

Jamie Ngoc Dinh, Snehesh Shrestha, You-Jin Kim, Jun Nishida, Myungin Lee:

NeuResonance: Exploring Feedback Experiences for Fostering the Inter-brain Synchronization. In: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM CHI 2025

Presented: ACM CHI 2025 - [Embodied Simulation Session] May 1, 2025, Yokohama, Japan

▪️  DOI: 10.1145/3706598.3713872    ▪️  arXiv: 10.48550/arXiv.2511.02079 

Abstract

When several individuals collaborate on a shared task, their brain activities often synchronize. This phenomenon, known as Inter-brain Synchronization (IBS), is notable for inducing prosocial outcomes such as enhanced interpersonal feelings, including closeness, trust, empathy, and more. Further strengthening the IBS with the aid of external feedback would be beneficial for scenarios where those prosocial feelings play a vital role in interpersonal communication, such as rehabilitation between a therapist and a patient, motor skill learning between a teacher and a student, and group performance art. This paper investigates whether visual, auditory, and haptic feedback of the IBS level can further enhance its intensity, offering design recommendations for feedback systems in IBS. We report findings when three different types of feedback were provided: IBS level feedback by means of on-body projection mapping, sonification using chords, and vibration bands attached to the wrist.

Research Contributions

• Auditory feedback provides the most consistent and significant improvement in inter-brain synchronization compared to visual and haptic modalities.

• Visual feedback delivered via projection mapping often fails to enhance synchronization due to high cognitive load and distributed attention.

• Haptic feedback intensity yields highly polarized user preferences, requiring personalization to avoid being perceived as either intrusive or unnoticeable.

• High sensitivity to frequency changes makes auditory stimuli an optimal choice for enhancing real-time synchronization during complex motor tasks.

• Pairs who share identical feedback preferences demonstrate significantly stronger inter-brain synchrony improvements than pairs with mismatched sensory preferences.

• Rhythmic vibrotactile feedback serves as an effective private alternative for synchronization in noisy environments where auditory cues are impractical.

• Accurate, low-latency feedback is essential for maintaining user trust and preventing a false sense of synchronization during collaborative tasks.

Citation IEEE Format

[1] J. N. Dinh, S. Shrestha, Y-J. Kim, J. Nishida, and M. Lee, "NeuResonance: Exploring Feedback Experiences for Fostering the Inter-brain Synchronization," in Proc. 2025 CHI Conf. Human Factors in Comput. Syst., 2025, Art. no. 363, pp. 1–16. doi: 10.1145/3706598.3713872. (16 Pages)

Citation APA Format

Dinh, J. N., Shrestha, S., Kim, Y-J., Nishida, J., & Lee, M. (2025). NeuResonance: Exploring feedback experiences for fostering the inter-brain synchronization. Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Article 363, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713872. (16 Pages)