Assessment of nonverbal communication using EEG hyperscanning

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K20020
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Human informatics and related fields
• Research Institution: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
• Principal Investigator: Iwaki Sunao 国立研究開発法人産業技術総合研究所, 情報・人間工学領域, 副研究部門長 (70356525)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 梅村 浩之 国立研究開発法人産業技術総合研究所, 情報・人間工学領域, 研究チーム長 (10356587)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-06-30 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 脳波 / ハイパースキャン / 非言語的コミュニケーション

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The purpose of this study was to develop a technique to simultaneously measure brain activity signals from two participants who are performing a face-to-face nonverbal communication (hyper-scanning), to analyze the relationship of neural activity between the two participants, and to develop an evaluation technique for face-to-face communication in a virtual reality (VR) space. We confirmed that it is possible to measure the activity of the mirror neuron system as the basis of communication during eye contact, and to evaluate the allocation of cognitive resources of both participants for task execution based on the correlation of spontaneous brain activity between them while engaged in nonverbal cooperative tasks. The results showed that it is possible to evaluate the cooperative status of the two participants.

Free Research Field

認知神経科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

非言語的コミュニケーションや協調作業を効率的に行うには，参加者間の協調の姿勢が欠かせない．これまでも，他者の行為や周囲環境の観察にともなって自己の運動が変化する現象などが明らかになっているが，参加者間の行為と認知のループの中での非言語的情報交換の神経学的メカニズムはまったく明らかにされていない．本研究の学術的意義は，非言語的協調作業を行っている二者間の協調の状態を，自発脳活動の相関関係を用いた両者の認知リソースの配分状況の時間的変化の観点から評価可能にする点にある．