Chapter 10
Computational EEG Analysis
for Hyperscanning and Social
Neuroscience
Dan Zhang
Abstract Hyperscanning, the technique that simultaneously records neural activities from multiple interacting participants, has attracted increasing attention in the
field of social neuroscience. EEG is among the most popular neuroimaging techniques for hyperscanning, as its high portability enables neural signal recordings in
naturalistic social interaction scenarios. This chapter summarizes the state-of-the-art
progress on the computational EEG analysis methods for hyperscanning and social
neuroscience. These methods are divided into two categories, focusing on social perception and social interaction, respectively. A variety of computational models have
been proposed and implemented to quantitatively describe the hyperlinks among
interacting brains, and significant hyperlinks have been reported in social tasks covering typical social activities. As the development of hyperscanning methods is still
at its early beginning, future perspectives are discussed at the end of the chapter.
10.1 Introduction
Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather than individualists. Social activities are hereby essential for humans. With the rapid development of neuroscientific
research techniques, increasing interest has been drawn toward social neuroscience,
which is an interdisciplinary field devoted to the understanding of biological implementation of social processes and behaviors [37, 60]. To explore the neural basis
of social behaviors, the conventional single-brain approach has been widely used
and great progresses have been made. Based on data collected from both patients
with social function disorders and healthy people, the important brain regions for
social functioning, such as the fusiform area for perceiving facial information, the
Broca’s and the Wernicke’s areas for processing speech information, the mirror neuron network for interpreting actions, etc., have been identified and theories about
their working mechanisms have been (partially) elucidated [19, 65]. Despite its great
D. Zhang (B)
Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
e-mail: dzhang@tsinghua.edu.cn
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018
C.-H. Im (ed.), Computational EEG Analysis, Biological and Medical Physics,
Biomedical Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0908-3_10
215
Computational EEG Analysis
for Hyperscanning and Social
Neuroscience
Dan Zhang
Abstract Hyperscanning, the technique that simultaneously records neural activities from multiple interacting participants, has attracted increasing attention in the
field of social neuroscience. EEG is among the most popular neuroimaging techniques for hyperscanning, as its high portability enables neural signal recordings in
naturalistic social interaction scenarios. This chapter summarizes the state-of-the-art
progress on the computational EEG analysis methods for hyperscanning and social
neuroscience. These methods are divided into two categories, focusing on social perception and social interaction, respectively. A variety of computational models have
been proposed and implemented to quantitatively describe the hyperlinks among
interacting brains, and significant hyperlinks have been reported in social tasks covering typical social activities. As the development of hyperscanning methods is still
at its early beginning, future perspectives are discussed at the end of the chapter.
10.1 Introduction
Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather than individualists. Social activities are hereby essential for humans. With the rapid development of neuroscientific
research techniques, increasing interest has been drawn toward social neuroscience,
which is an interdisciplinary field devoted to the understanding of biological implementation of social processes and behaviors [37, 60]. To explore the neural basis
of social behaviors, the conventional single-brain approach has been widely used
and great progresses have been made. Based on data collected from both patients
with social function disorders and healthy people, the important brain regions for
social functioning, such as the fusiform area for perceiving facial information, the
Broca’s and the Wernicke’s areas for processing speech information, the mirror neuron network for interpreting actions, etc., have been identified and theories about
their working mechanisms have been (partially) elucidated [19, 65]. Despite its great
D. Zhang (B)
Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
e-mail: dzhang@tsinghua.edu.cn
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018
C.-H. Im (ed.), Computational EEG Analysis, Biological and Medical Physics,
Biomedical Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0908-3_10
215