Application of Near-infrared Hyperscanning in Social Interaction Research

Social interaction is essential for shaping individuals’ daily cognition and behavioral norms, and facilitates the achievement of common goals. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning technology has emerged as a key tool for studying the inter-brain neural mechanisms underlying social interaction, owing to its unique advantages such as enabling synchronous recording of multi-person brain activity during natural social interactions, high ecological validity, portability, and relative insensitivity to motion artifacts. By quantifying interbrain synchronization (IBS), this technique has been widely applied across various fields, including social cognition, cooperation and competition, parent-infant interaction, education and teaching, as well as clinical assessment and intervention for disorders. It has profoundly revealed the synchronization and coupling patterns of brain activity behind numerous interactive behaviors, ranging from daily communication to collaborative tasks, thereby advancing social neuroscience research from a “single-brain” to a “multi-brain” paradigm and demonstrating significant theoretical value and application potential.