Sharing the social world via intersubject neural synchronisation
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Updated: Feb 13, 2026

The Social Dimension of Stress: Experimental Manipulations of Social Support and Social Identity in the Trier Social Stress Test
Published on: November 19, 2015
Lauri Nummenmaa1, Juha M Lahnakoski2, Enrico Glerean3
1Turku PET Centre, University of Turku, 20520 Turku, Finland; Department of Psychology, University of Turku, Finland.
Abstract:
Sociability and capability of shared mental states are hallmarks of the human species, and pursuing shared goals oftentimes requires coordinating both behaviour and mental states. Here we review recent work using indices of intersubject neural synchronisation for measuring similarity of mental states across individuals. We discuss the methodological advances and limitations in the analyses based on intersubject synchrony, and discuss how these kinds of model-free analysis techniques enable the investigation of the brain basis of complex social processes. We argue that similarity of brain activity across individuals can be used, under certain conditions, to index the similarity of their subjective states of consciousness, and thus be used for investigating brain basis of mutual understanding and cooperation.
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