Summary: A new study shows that when two people work together to achieve a shared goal, their brains begin to process information in increasingly similar ways. Using EEG recordings, the researchers found that while all participants showed similar early responses to visual patterns, only collaborative pairs developed sustained neural alignment tied to the rules they agreed upon.
This alignment became stronger as the pairs improved on their joint task, reflecting a shared cognitive strategy. The findings indicate that cooperation actively reshapes neural processing, offering insights into how groups coordinate, make decisions, and form shared traditions.
Key facts:
Neural alignment: Pairs collaborating on a task developed matching brain processing patterns after 200 ms. Learning effect: The more time the couples spent working together, the stronger their neural alignment became. Shared rules matter: Alignment appeared only when partners used mutually agreed upon strategies.
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Whether great minds think alike is a matter of debate, but the collaborative minds of two people working on a shared task process information similarly, according to a study published Nov. 25 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Denise Moerel and colleagues at Western Sydney University in Australia.
Humans depend on collaboration for everything from producing food to raising children. But to cooperate successfully, people must make sure they see the same things and work within the same rules. We must agree that the red fruits are the ones that are ripe and that we will leave the green fruits alone.
Behavioral collaboration requires people to think the same way and follow the same instructions.
To better understand people’s cognitive processes during a shared task, the authors of this study collected data from 24 pairs of people.
Each pair had to sort shapes and patterns and decide in advance how they would do it: sort by wavy or straight lines, thick or thin, contrast or general shape. Each pair then sat back to back and worked together to categorize one shape after another, while EEGs recorded their brain activity to find out how well that activity aligned between the pairs.
In the first 45 to 180 milliseconds after a shape appeared, all study participants had similar neural activity, a result of looking at the same pattern on the screen. But after 200 milliseconds, as each pair worked to arrange the pattern according to their own rules, activity aligned only in pairs that were actively working together.
Each pair’s brains processed information similarly, and the alignment of their activity increased throughout the experiment as the pairs got better at working as a team, following the rules they had established together.
The results show that when people agree on rules and work together, their brains process information in similar ways. The authors suggest that this shared activity could have important implications for how groups make decisions and develop traditions and rituals.
The authors add: “As two people learn to work together, their brains begin to represent information in a more similar way, demonstrating that collaboration influences how we see and understand the world.”
Funding: This work was supported by an Australian Research Council (ARC, www.arc.gov.au) Discovery Project awarded to MV (DP220103047) and an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award awarded to TG (DE230100380). DM received salary of DP220103047 and TG received salary of DE230100380. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Key questions answered:
A: How pairs of people process information when collaborating on a shared task.
A: Participants were recorded with EEG while consecutively working on the same classification task.
A: Brain activity became more similar only in actively cooperating pairs, and the alignment strengthened over time.
Editorial notes:
This article was edited by a Neuroscience News editor. Magazine article reviewed in its entirety. Additional context added by our staff.
About this neuroscience research news
Author: Claire Turner
Source: More
Contact: Claire Turner – PLOS
Image: Image is credited to Neuroscience News.
Original research: Open access.
“Collaborative rule learning promotes information alignment between brains” by Denise Moerel et al. More biology
Abstract
Collaborative rule learning promotes information alignment between brains
Social interactions shape our perception of the world and influence how we interpret incoming information. Alignment between the sensory and cognitive processes of interacting individuals is key to successful cooperation and communication, but the neural processes underlying this alignment remain unknown.
Here, we leveraged Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA) on electroencephalography (EEG) hyperscan data to investigate information alignment in 24 pairs of participants who performed a categorization task together according to agreed-upon rules.
A significant alignment of information between brains emerged within 45 ms of stimulus presentation and persisted for hundreds of milliseconds.
Early alignment (45–180 ms) occurred in both real and random pseudopairs, reflecting shared sensory responses. Importantly, alignment after 200 ms strengthened with practice and was unique to real pairs, driven by shared representations associated with and extending beyond the categorization rules they formed.
Together, these findings highlight distinct processes underlying the alignment of interbrain information during social interactions, which can be effectively captured and disentangled with Interbrain RSA.
