The Effects Of Spatial Distance And Gazing Direction On Group Creativity

Communication unites individuals into groups to accomplish tasks that individuals cannot handle.There are many factors that affect communication.In addition to verbal elements,those non-verbal elements,such as the spatial environment,and the bodily movements of group members,also play an essential role that cannot be ignored.According to embodied cognition theory,closer spatial distance may be perceived as closer interpersonal relationship,while more direct gaze angle may be perceived as more sincere and respectful interaction attitude.Our study used functional near-infrared spectroscopy(fNIRS)-based hyperscanning technology to explore how non-verbal factors(e.g.spatial distance and gaze angle)affect interpersonal communication and their possible neural mechanisms,and to explore whether these effects exists in both higher cognitive related task(group creativity task)and regular communication task(general feature description task).In study 1,participants in a two-person group were randomly assigned to either a distance or a proximity group.In study 2,subjects formed a two-person group and were randomly divided into the direct vision group and the lateral vision group.During each experiment,the fNIRS equipments were used to record the brain activity levels of PFC and r-TPJ regions of two subjects simultaneously.The results showed that the performance of group creativity and regular communication task in the close group were significantly higher than that in the distance group.Moreover,the interpersonal brain synchronization(IBS)of frontal,dorsolateral prefrontal(DLPFC)and angular gyrus regions was significantly increased in the close condition.In study 2,similarly,in the direct vision condition,the performance of group creativity was significantly higher than that in the lateral vision group,and the IBS of DLPFC and angular gyrus regions was significantly increased.These results indicated that positive non-verbal elements(such as close spatial distance and direct gaze angle)strengthened the cooperation of the subjects,improved the IBS of DLPFC,angular gyrus and other regions,and thus promoted the group task performance.