ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Neurosci.
Sec. Decision Neuroscience
Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnins.2025.1670193
This article is part of the Research TopicThe brain and social interactions: from paradigms of social emotion recognition to hyperscanningView all 4 articles
The influence of psychological distance and topic type on inter-brain synchronization of emotion perception during face-to-face communication: An fNIRS Hyperscanning Study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Faculty of Education, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, China
- 2Key Laboratory of Educational Informatization for Nationalities (YNNU), Ministry of Education, China, Kunming, China
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Emotional perception is an important process in social interaction. However, previous studies have mainly focused on static emotion perception rather than examined its dynamic unfolding during communication. Therefore, this study investigated how psychological distance (friend vs. stranger pairs) and topic type (shared vs. exclusive experiences) modulate inter-brain synchronization (IBS) during emotional communication, using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The results showed that: 1) Shared story (vs exclusive story) elicited higher levels of emotion perception (both self and other, p < 0.05), and friend (vs stranger) perceived their friends' negative emotions more strongly (p < 0.05); 2) Greater IBS at right superior frontal gyrus (rSFG; BA 10) when shared story (vs exclusive) in friend, rather than stranger (p_FWE < 0.05). The results indicate that with friendships deepening, the overlap between the two parties increases; friends will resonate more when sharing common events. These findings provide brain imaging evidence of emotion perception in communication.
Keywords: psychological distance, sharing emotion, negative emotion, Emotional perception, hyperscanning, fNIRS
Received: 21 Jul 2025; Accepted: 12 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tao, Zhou, Wang, Li and MA. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xuzhou Li, lixuzhou@ynnu.edu.cn
Xie MA, mxnn6@aliyun.com
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