More Than Close Friends: Higher Emotional Coordination in Romantic Relationships

819 

Abstract Submission 

Yijun Chen¹, Zhengde Wei¹, Xiaochu Zhang¹

¹University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui

Yijun Chen  
University of Science and Technology of China
Hefei, Anhui

Zhengde Wei  
University of Science and Technology of China
Hefei, Anhui

Xiaochu Zhang  
University of Science and Technology of China
Hefei, Anhui

Emotions are fundamental to social interaction and deeply intertwined with interpersonal dynamics (Nummenmaa et al., 2012), especially in romantic relationships, which are characterized by their deep emotional bonds (Hazan & Shaver, 1987). Previous hyperscanning studies often entail interactive processes that are intricately intertwined with emotions (Barrett et al., 2007; Parkinson & Simons, 2009), posing a challenge to disentangle whether the observed neural synchronization reflects the emotions during the interaction or is intrinsic to the interaction itself. Moreover, studies have shown a strong association between relationship quality and emotional coordination (Larson & Almeida, 1999; Randall et al., 2013), thus warranting additional research in the romantic context.

The final statistics include a total of 25 pairs of heterosexual couples (mean age = 22.90, SD = 3.20) and 25 pairs of heterosexual friends (mean age = 21.86, SD = 2.61). Heterosexual couples in relationships lasting less than 3 months or more than 36 months were excluded. All participants took part in EEG hyperscanning in dyads. In a designated setting (see Figure 1), participants engaged in a silent joint video-viewing task presented by E-prime 2.0 synchronously. The task comprised 2 blocks, each containing 6 randomly ordered videos. We selected two suitable videos for each of the six emotions: happiness, joy, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust. All 12 videos had durations ranging from 50 seconds to 250 seconds. EEG data were collected using the EEG hyperscanning device provided by Neuracle (http://www.neuracle.cn/). Two 64-channel caps with electrodes arranged according to the international 10-20 system were employed to simultaneously record EEG signals at a sampling rate of 1000 Hz. We utilized the phase lag index (PLI) and the power spectral density (PSD) to quantify neural synchronization and individual activation. Correlation analysis, mediation analysis, and support vector machine analysis were employed to clarify the underlying mechanisms.

Our results indicated that couples had significantly higher emotional behavioral synchronization and higher alpha PLI in the prefrontal cortex than friends (Figure 1). Pearson correlation analysis found that relationship quality was significantly correlated with both emotional behavioral synchronization and neural synchronization in the couple group rather than in the friend group (Figure 2a-f). Among these three variables, we observed partial mediation in couples (path: relationship quality[X] → neural synchronization[M] → behavioral synchronization[Y]), suggesting a compensatory mechanism among them. Moreover, we calculated the PSD in the prefrontal cortex of the alpha band and found a significant interaction effect of "gender*group" (Figure 2h). Couples showed gender differences in PSD and these activation were significantly associated with differences in relationship quality in males (Figure 2i,j). These differences help distinguish the two types of relationships, and the best classification performance was achieved by utilizing only alpha PLI between the PFCs of the dyads (Figure 2k-m).

We examined differences in emotional experiences, both in neural and behavioral performance, between heterosexual couples and heterosexual friends from a dyad synchronization perspective without direct interaction. Our results reveal that in romantic relationships, there is a deeper emotional connection and a significant correlation with relationship quality. Couples use brain synchronization to overcome relationship challenges and exert influence on gender-based differences in brain activity, distinguishing them from friends. Overall, our study sheds light on the neural mechanisms underlying emotional coordination within romantic contexts, offering the potential to strengthen emotional bonds and enhance relationship quality between partners.

Emotional Perception

Social Interaction ¹

Social Neuroscience Other ²

EEG

Electroencephaolography (EEG)

Emotions

Other - romantic love; relationship quality; EEG-hyperscanning; neural synchronization