The intricate interplay between shared intentionality (SI) and the establishment of a novel interpersonal communication system has remained relatively unexplored. To address this gap, researchers employed a coordinating symbolic communication game (CSCG) in combination with various methods such as behavioral analysis, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)-based hyperscanning, and hyper-transcranial alternating current stimulation (hyper-tACS).
The study reveals that SI significantly influences communicative accuracy. Furthermore, successful establishment of a novel communication system leads to heightened SI, communicative accuracy, and interpersonal neural synchronization (INS) within the right superior temporal gyrus (rSTG). The role of SI is found to impact communicative accuracy by enhancing INS. Notably, through intricate analyses including time series and long short-term memory neural network assessments, it is demonstrated that INS can predict communicative accuracy in the early stages of communication system formation. Noteworthy is the fact that INS partially mediates the connection between SI and communicative accuracy solely during the formation stage of the communication system. Interestingly, once the communication system is in place, SI and INS no longer contribute to communicative accuracy.
Lastly, a hyper-tACS experiment confirms the causal effect of INS on communicative accuracy. These findings collectively suggest a behavioral and neural mechanism anchored in SI and INS that drives the establishment of a novel interpersonal communication system.
