Why do we fall into sync with others? Interpersonal synchronization and the brain’s optimization principle

Abstract

Spontaneous interpersonal synchronization of rhythmic behavior such as gait or hand clapping is a ubiquitous phenomenon in human interactions, and is potentially important for social relationships and action understanding. Although several authors have suggested a role of the mirror neuron system in interpersonal coupling, the underlying brain mechanisms are not well understood. Here we argue that more general theories of neural computations, namely predictive coding and the Free Energy Principle, could explain interpersonal coordination dynamics. Each brain minimizes coding costs by reducing the mismatch between the representations of observed and own motor behavior. Continuous mutual prediction and alignment result in an overall minimization of free energy, thus forming a stable attractor state.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 180 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.