A cheap headband can tell when two people's brains sync up during a game.

Scientists want to track how people's brains sync up during shared activities using cheap, everyday gear. To test this, researchers recorded brainwaves from five pairs of people wearing consumer-grade headbands. The pairs switched between relaxing and playing a cooperative block game together. The team measured electrical brain signals, looking at individual wave patterns and how closely the two players' waves synced across both brains. They organized these measurements into tables and taught a computer program to tell relaxation apart from gameplay. When the program checked all brain measurements, it separated relaxation from gaming with perfect accuracy. When it looked only at how the two brains synced together, it still correctly spotted the difference 79 % of the time on new test data.

Why it matters

This could make studies of social brain interaction affordable and accessible outside labs. It opens doors for developing neurofeedback tools that use everyday devices to understand cooperation.

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