Inter-brain synchronization occurs without physical co-presence during cooperative online gaming.

Inter-brain synchronization during social interaction has been linked with several positive phenomena, including closeness, cooperation, prosociality, and team performance. However, the temporal dynamics of inter-brain synchronization during collaboration are not yet fully understood. Furthermore, with collaboration increasingly happening online, the dependence of inter-brain phase synchronization of oscillatory activity on physical presence is an important but understudied question. In this study, physically isolated participants performed a collaborative coordination task in the form of a cooperative multiplayer game. We measured EEG from 42 subjects working together as pairs in the task. During the measurement, the only interaction between the participants happened through on-screen movement of a racing car, controlled by button presses of both participants working with distinct roles, either controlling the speed or the direction of the car. Pairs working together in the task were found to have elevated neural coupling in the alpha, beta, and gamma frequency bands, compared to performance matched false pairs. Higher gamma synchrony was associated with better momentary performance within dyads and higher alpha synchrony was associated with better mean performance across dyads. These results are in line with previous findings of increased inter-brain synchrony during interaction, and show that phase synchronization of oscillatory activity occurs during online real-time joint coordination without any physical co-presence or video and audio connection. Synchrony decreased during a playing session, but was found to be higher during the second session compared to the first. The novel paradigm, developed for the measurement of real-time collaborative performance, demonstrates that changes in inter-brain EEG phase synchrony can be observed continuously during interaction.

Perceptions of Doctors' Empathy and Patients' Subjective Health Status at an Online Clinic: Development of an Empathic Anamnesis Questionnaire.

OBJECTIVE: Medical doctors' empathy is known to support patients' health status after face-to-face clinical visits. However, the role of doctors' empathy in chat-based encounters is not yet well understood. This study investigates whether patients' evaluations of doctors' empathy are associated with their health perceptions after a meeting at an online clinic and whether experiences of empathy could be enhanced by augmenting an automated anamnesis questionnaire completed before the visit. METHODS: A total of 209 adult patients agreed to participate in the study. First 103 patients filled out the regular version of the questionnaire (June-August 2019) and then 106 filled out the augmented version of the online anamnesis questionnaire (August-November 2019). Patients' perceptions of doctors' empathy were measured with the Consultation and Relational Empathy questionnaire. Patients' self-perceived health status, potential confounders, and demographic background information were measured via questionnaires. RESULTS: Patients' perceptions of doctors' empathy during a chat-based encounter were associated with patients being less concerned about their symptoms (estimated odds ratios varied between 0.45 and 0.55 depending on the model, p values < .003) and considering their symptoms as less severe (estimated odds ratios = 0.54-0.61, p values < .007), as well as a higher probability of alleviation of symptoms as rated by the patients (estimated odds ratios = 2.16-2.24, p values < .001). Augmenting the anamnesis questionnaire did not affect patient reports on doctors' overall empathy, but it did have positive effects on specific areas of doctors' empathy covered by the questionnaire. CONCLUSIONS: These results show that patients' experience of doctors' empathy not only is important during face-to-face encounters but also supports patients' perceptions of health when the interaction is text based. The results also encourage further development of means to support patients' experiences of empathy during online interaction with medical doctors.

Faster maturation of selective attention in musically trained children and adolescents: Converging behavioral and event-related potential evidence.

Previous work suggests that musical training in childhood is associated with enhanced executive functions. However, it is unknown whether this advantage extends to selective attention-another central aspect of executive control. We recorded a well-established event-related potential (ERP) marker of distraction, the P3a, during an audio-visual task to investigate the maturation of selective attention in musically trained children and adolescents aged 10-17 years and a control group of untrained peers. The task required categorization of visual stimuli, while a sequence of standard sounds and distracting novel sounds were presented in the background. The music group outperformed the control group in the categorization task and the younger children in the music group showed a smaller P3a to the distracting novel sounds than their peers in the control group. Also, a negative response elicited by the novel sounds in the N1/MMN time range (~150-200 ms) was smaller in the music group. These results indicate that the music group was less easily distracted by the task-irrelevant sound stimulation and gated the neural processing of the novel sounds more efficiently than the control group. Furthermore, we replicated our previous finding that, relative to the control group, the musically trained children and adolescents performed faster in standardized tests for inhibition and set shifting. These results provide novel converging behavioral and electrophysiological evidence from a cross-modal paradigm for accelerated maturation of selective attention in musically trained children and adolescents and corroborate the association between musical training and enhanced inhibition and set shifting.

Collaborative block design task for assessing pair performance in virtual reality and reality.

Collaborative problem solving is more important than ever as the problems we try to solve become increasingly complex. Meanwhile, personal and professional communication has moved from face-to-face to computer-mediated environments, but there is little understanding on how the characteristics of these environments affect the quality of interaction and joint problem solving. To develop this understanding, methods are needed for measuring success of collaboration. For this purpose, we created a collaborative block design task intended to evaluate and quantify pair performance. In this task, participants need to share information to complete visuospatial puzzles. Two versions of the task are described: a physical version and one that can be completed in virtual reality. A preliminary study was conducted with the physical version (N = 18 pairs) and the results were used to develop the task for a second study in virtual reality (N = 31 pairs). Performance measures were developed for the task, and we found that pair performance was normally distributed and positively associated with visuospatial skills, but not with other participant-specific background factors. The task specifications are released for the research community to apply and adapt in the study of computer-mediated social interaction.

Selectively Enhanced Development of Working Memory in Musically Trained Children and Adolescents.

In the current longitudinal study, we investigated the development of working memory in musically trained and nontrained children and adolescents, aged 9-20. We measured working memory with the Digit Span (DS) forwards and backwards tests (N = 106) and the Trail-Making A and B (TMT-A and B; N = 104) tests three times, in 2011, 2013, and 2016. We expected that musically trained participants would outperform peers with no musical training. Indeed, we found that the younger musically trained participants, in particular, outperformed their nontrained peers in the TMT-A, TMT-B and DS forwards tests. These tests all primarily require active maintenance of a rule in memory or immediate recall. In contrast, we found no group differences in the backwards test that requires manipulation and updating of information in working memory. These results suggest that musical training is more strongly associated with heightened working memory capacity and maintenance than enhanced working memory updating, especially in late childhood and early adolescence.

Neural correlates of enhanced executive functions: is less more?

Musical training has been associated with superior performance in various executive function tasks. To date, only a few neuroimaging studies have investigated the neural substrates of the supposed "musician advantage" in executive functions, precluding definite conclusions about its neural basis. Here, we provide a selective review of neuroimaging studies on plasticity and typical maturation of executive functions, with the aim of investigating how proficient performance in executive function tasks is reflected in brain activity. Specifically, we examine the evidence for the hypothesis that enhanced or mature executive functions are manifested as efficient use of neural systems supporting those functions. We also present preliminary results from a functional magnetic resonance imaging study suggesting-in line with this hypothesis-that musically trained adolescents recruit frontoparietal regions less strongly during executive functions tasks than untrained peers.

Cognitive flexibility modulates maturation and music-training-related changes in neural sound discrimination.

Previous research has demonstrated that musicians show superior neural sound discrimination when compared to non-musicians, and that these changes emerge with accumulation of training. Our aim was to investigate whether individual differences in executive functions predict training-related changes in neural sound discrimination. We measured event-related potentials induced by sound changes coupled with tests for executive functions in musically trained and non-trained children aged 9-11 years and 13-15 years. High performance in a set-shifting task, indexing cognitive flexibility, was linked to enhanced maturation of neural sound discrimination in both musically trained and non-trained children. Specifically, well-performing musically trained children already showed large mismatch negativity (MMN) responses at a young age as well as at an older age, indicating accurate sound discrimination. In contrast, the musically trained low-performing children still showed an increase in MMN amplitude with age, suggesting that they were behind their high-performing peers in the development of sound discrimination. In the non-trained group, in turn, only the high-performing children showed evidence of an age-related increase in MMN amplitude, and the low-performing children showed a small MMN with no age-related change. These latter results suggest an advantage in MMN development also for high-performing non-trained individuals. For the P3a amplitude, there was an age-related increase only in the children who performed well in the set-shifting task, irrespective of music training, indicating enhanced attention-related processes in these children. Thus, the current study provides the first evidence that, in children, cognitive flexibility may influence age-related and training-related plasticity of neural sound discrimination.

Promises of formal and informal musical activities in advancing neurocognitive development throughout childhood.

Adult musicians show superior neural sound discrimination when compared to nonmusicians. However, it is unclear whether these group differences reflect the effects of experience or preexisting neural enhancement in individuals who seek out musical training. Tracking how brain function matures over time in musically trained and nontrained children can shed light on this issue. Here, we review our recent longitudinal event-related potential (ERP) studies that examine how formal musical training and less formal musical activities influence the maturation of brain responses related to sound discrimination and auditory attention. These studies found that musically trained school-aged children and preschool-aged children attending a musical playschool show more rapid maturation of neural sound discrimination than their control peers. Importantly, we found no evidence for pretraining group differences. In a related cross-sectional study, we found ERP and behavioral evidence for improved executive functions and control over auditory novelty processing in musically trained school-aged children and adolescents. Taken together, these studies provide evidence for the causal role of formal musical training and less formal musical activities in shaping the development of important neural auditory skills and suggest transfer effects with domain-general implications.

Investigating the effects of musical training on functional brain development with a novel Melodic MMN paradigm.

Sensitivity to changes in various musical features was investigated by recording the mismatch negativity (MMN) auditory event-related potential (ERP) in musically trained and nontrained children semi-longitudinally at the ages of 9, 11, and 13 years. The responses were recorded using a novel Melodic multi-feature paradigm which allows fast (<15 min) recording of an MMN profile for changes in melody, rhythm, musical key, timbre, tuning and timing. When compared to the nontrained children, the musically trained children displayed enlarged MMNs for the melody modulations by the age 13 and for the rhythm modulations, timbre deviants and slightly mistuned tones already at the age of 11. Also, a positive mismatch response elicited by delayed tones was larger in amplitude in the musically trained than in the nontrained children at age 13. No group differences were found at the age 9 suggesting that the later enhancement of the MMN in the musically trained children resulted from training and not pre-existing difference between the groups. The current study demonstrates the applicability of the Melodic multi-feature paradigm in school-aged children and indicates that musical training enhances auditory discrimination for musically central sound dimensions in pre-adolescence.

Enhanced development of auditory change detection in musically trained school-aged children: a longitudinal event-related potential study.

Adult musicians show superior auditory discrimination skills when compared to non-musicians. The enhanced auditory skills of musicians are reflected in the augmented amplitudes of their auditory event-related potential (ERP) responses. In the current study, we investigated longitudinally the development of auditory discrimination skills in musically trained and nontrained individuals. To this end, we recorded the mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a responses from children who play a musical instrument and age-matched children with no musical training at ages 7, 9, 11, and 13. Basic auditory processing was investigated by recording ERPs in the Multi-Feature Paradigm that included frequency, duration, intensity, location, and gap deviants. The detection of musically more relevant sound changes was examined in an oddball paradigm with major chords as standards and minor chords as deviants. The musically trained children showed larger increase in MMN and P3a amplitudes with age for the chord deviants than the control children. There was also a strong trend (p = .054) for larger increase in MMN amplitude in the musically trained children for the location deviant. As no group differences in response amplitudes were evident at the early stages of the training, our results suggest that the superior neural auditory discrimination in adult musicians is due to training and not pre-existing differences between musicians and non-musicians.

Do informal musical activities shape auditory skill development in preschool-age children?

The influence of formal musical training on auditory cognition has been well established. For the majority of children, however, musical experience does not primarily consist of adult-guided training on a musical instrument. Instead, young children mostly engage in everyday musical activities such as singing and musical play. Here, we review recent electrophysiological and behavioral studies carried out in our laboratory and elsewhere which have begun to map how developing auditory skills are shaped by such informal musical activities both at home and in playschool-type settings. Although more research is still needed, the evidence emerging from these studies suggests that, in addition to formal musical training, informal musical activities can also influence the maturation of auditory discrimination and attention in preschool-aged children.