| Interpersonal communication is a process of transmitting information with others,and it is essentially the cooperation or joint activity of humans.On the one hand,effective interpersonal communication plays a vital role in cultivating harmonious interpersonal relationships,establishing and maintaining social cohesion,and promoting mutual understanding.On the other hand,autism spectrum disorder(ASD)and schizophrenia patients are characterized by communication difficulties.Previous research tried to study the process of interpersonal communication based on the "shared intentionality hypothesis" and behavioral research.They found some factors that affected the final communication performance,such as shared intentionality,interaction level,working memory span,and so on.In recent years,social neuroscientists have begun to use brain imaging techniques to explore the neural processes underlying interpersonal communication.Interestingly,they have found that the neural activities of two communicators are more synchronized in the process of verbal communication and mutual understanding.However,several questions remain.(1)Most of these findings presupposed that communicators already shared the pre-established communication system.Little is known about how people successfully established a novel interpersonal communication system without a pre-established communication system.(2)Although some researchers have pointed out that human communication relies on shared intentionality or "we" intentionality,due to the limitations of experimental paradigms and techniques,it is difficult to explore the underline neural basis.(3)Previous research mainly focused on the final communication performance,ignoring the dynamic interaction characteristics between individuals in the process of interpersonal communication.Additionally,previous studies have not clarified how the interaction characteristics of two communicators affected establishing a novel interpersonal symbolic communication system.Considering the limitations of previous research,we improved the previous experimental semiotics paradigm and designed a coordinating symbolic communication paradigm(CSCP)in the current study.In study 1,we combined the CSCP and behavioral research.The first study was to verify the feasibility of the paradigm and examined the predictive role of shared intentionality in creating a novel interpersonal symbolic communication system(Experiment 1).(2)Study 2 combined the CSCP and functional near-infrared spectroscopy-based hyperscanning technique to investigate the dynamic changes of interpersonal neural synchronization(INS)during creating a novel interpersonal symbolic communication system(Experiment 2).Furthermore,study 2 applied the transcranial alternating current stimulation(t ACS)technique to verify the causal relationship between the INS and communication accuracy(Experiment 3).The primary purpose of study 2 was to provide the neural basis for creating a novel interpersonal symbolic communication system from the perspective of interpersonal interaction.(3)Additionally,we regulated the interaction efficiency of communicators through role setting.We studied whether the influence of shared intentionality on communication accuracy was affected by the interaction efficiency in study 3(Experiment 4).Study 1 combined the CSCP with behavioral research.Based on verifying the feasibility of the paradigm,we explore the psychological basis for creating a novel interpersonal symbolic communication system.The stimulus materials included nine figures and nine meaningless letters.The paradigm consists of two stages.The first stage is the coordination period(COP).Two communicators are required to guess each other's intentions and ideas through feedback information,share their psychological states and adjust their coding-decoding strategies.The final goal is to establish a novel interpersonal symbolic communication system.The second stage is the communication testing period(CTP),which aims to detect the performance of the first stage.This experimental paradigm is based on the "Transaction Model of communication," which fully considers factors such as interaction and coordination in the process of interpersonal communication.In addition,it records each encoding-decoding step of two communicators during the communication process,which allows us to explore the interpersonal interaction characteristics and dynamic changes during the process of creating a novel interpersonal symbolic communication system.Based on previous research findings,two communicators' Big Five personality traits,working memory span,shared intentionality,cooperation,perceived similarity,interpersonal reactivity index,and need for cognition scale were measured before and after the experiment.Through correlation analysis and stepwise linear regression analysis,it is found that:(1)Correlations revealed that shared intentionality,cooperation,perceived similarity and interaction efficiency were significantly positively correlated with the communication accuracy during the COP.Additionally,a stepwise multiple regression test demonstrated that shared intentionality had a unique predictive effect on the communication accuracy during the COP and could explain 43.5% of the total variance in the communication accuracy.Study 2 combined the CSCP and the f NIRS-based hyperscanning technique to investigate the possible neural basis for creating a novel interpersonal symbolic communication system(Experiment 2).The basic definition of shared intentionality includes three dimensions: common goals,collaborative interactions,and sharing one's psychological states.We first manipulated the shard intentionality in the dimensions.Under the experimental condition,the two communicators need to use figures and characters to interact with each other and finally establish a novel interpersonal symbolic communication system.Under this condition,the two subjects include the above three dimensions of shared intentionality.However,the two subjects already knew the one-to-one correspondence between figures and characters under the control condition before the experiment.Two communicators have common goals and collaborative interactions,but they do not need to share their psychological states.The experimental and control conditions were within-subject designs,with 43 dyads in each condition.In addition,we divided the subjects into a high shared intentionality group and a low shared intentionality group according to the median of the shared intentionality scores of the two communicators under the experimental conditions.(1)We observed higher shared intentionality under the experimental condition compared to the control condition.Besides,communication accuracy during the COP and CTP and interaction efficiency was significantly higher in the high shared intentionality group under the experimental condition than in the low shared intentionality group.And there is a significant positive correlation between shared intentionality and communication accuracy during the COP in both groups.(2)The interpersonal neural synchronization analysis results showed that the INS during the COP(channel 15,right superior temporal gyrus)was significantly higher in the high shared intentionality group than that in the low shared intentionality group under the experimental condition.The INS during the COP was significantly positively correlated with the communication accuracy during the COP and shared intentionality in the high shared intentionality group but not in the low shared intentionality group.(3)The mediation effect analysis showed that the shared intentionality affected the communication accuracy through the INS during the COP of the right temporal lobe in the high shared intentionality group.(4)Time series analysis showed that the INS showed significant differences between the two groups at the early stage of communication(around the10 th trial).Moreover,correlation analyses revealed that the INS was significantly correlated with communication accuracy during the COP from the 10 th trial in the high shared intentionality group.(5)Using the long short-term memory neural network(LSTM),the INS was used to predict the communication accuracy during the COP.The results showed that in the high shared intentionality group under the experimental condition,from the 7th trial,the INS could stably predict the communication accuracy during the COP,but not in the low shared intentionality group.Furthermore,study 2 investigated the causative role of INS in the establishment of a novel interpersonal symbolic communication system through transcranial alternating current stimulation(t ACS,Experiment 3).Before the coordinating symbolic communication paradigm,two participants in a dyad randomly received in-phase,antiphase(40Hz,1m A,20min),or sham stimulation.Specifically,we found that:(1)the INS during the baseline period(initial rest)under the in-phase condition was significantly higher than that under the anti-phase and sham conditions,which verified the effectiveness of the stimulation.(2)Moreover,task-related INS analysis showed that INS in the r STG under in-phase condition was significantly higher than that under anti-phase and sham conditions.(3)Additionally,we observed higher communication accuracy during the COP and CTP and shared intentionality in the in-phase condition compared to the in-phased and sham conditions.(4)Mediation analysis showed that compared with sham stimulation,in-phase stimulation could significantly enhance the communication accuracy during the COP,which is through the INS enhancement.Through Experiment 1 and Experiment 2,we found that the interaction efficiency was significantly positively correlated with the shared intentionality and communication accuracy during the COP.We found that the interaction efficiency in the high shared intentionality group was significantly higher than that in the low shared intentionality group.Besides,the interaction efficiency was significantly correlated with shared intentionality,INS,and communication accuracy during the COP in the high shared intentionality group but not in the low shared intentionality group.Previous evidence has shown that communicators had higher shared intentionality and INS in the efficient communication condition(face-to-face interaction)compared with the inefficient communication condition(back-to-back interaction).Thus,we inferred that if communicators had higher interaction efficiency,it would be easier for them to guess their partner's thoughts.The communicators would be more willing to share their thoughts with their partners,which may induce stronger shared intentionality,INS,and better communication performance.However,inefficient interaction may reduce shared intentionality and INS between communicators,resulting in lower communication accuracy.Therefore,Study 3 aimed to explore whether the influence of shared intentionality on establishing a novel interpersonal symbolic communication system was regulated by interaction efficiency.Thus,Experiment 4 set two conditions(role fixed and role switching)to manipulate the interaction efficiency of communicators based on previous findings.We want to explore whether the influence of shared intentionality on communication accuracy is affected by the interaction efficiency of communicators.The results showed that:(1)The interaction efficiency,shared intentionality,and communication accuracy during the COP and CTP was significantly higher under the role fixed condition than those under the role switching condition.Besides,the shared intentionality was positively correlated with communication accuracy and interaction efficiency under two conditions.Furthermore,the mediation effect analysis showed that the role fixed condition improved the communication accuracy compared with the role switching condition through the shared intentionality.(2)Moreover,the INS results demonstrated significant INS enhancement in the r STG under both conditions,and INS during the COP was significantly higher in role fixed condition than in role switching condition.In addition,INS during the COP was positively correlated with the communication accuracy during the COP and shared intentionality in both conditions.However,we only found a significant positive correlation between INS and interaction efficiency under the role fixed condition but not under the role switching condition.(3)The mediating analysis showed that interaction efficiency promoted the relationship between shared intentionality and INS during the COP,which affected the communication accuracy during the COP.These studies suggested that(1)shared intentionality is a critical psychological basis for the establishment of a novel interpersonal symbolic communication system;(2)shared intentionality affected communication accuracy through INS enhancement in the r STG of both communicators;(3)the influence of shared intentionality on the establishment of a novel interpersonal symbolic communication system is regulated by the interaction efficiency of the communicators.The current study designed a coordinating symbolic communication paradigm and demonstrated that shared intentionality and INS might be the critical psychological and neural basis in establishing a novel interpersonal symbolic communication system.Our study extended Tomasello's "shared intentionality hypothesis" and provided scientific evidence from the perspective of interpersonal interaction.It promoted our understanding of the inner nature of interpersonal communication. |
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