Name:Jennifer, Lohin

School/Affiliation:Toronto Metropolitan University

Co-Authors:Frank Russo

Virtual or In-person:In-person

Short Bio:

Jennifer began her MA in Psychological Science at Toronto Metropolitan University in 2024 under the supervision of Dr. Frank Russo. Jennifer’s primary research interest is the intersection of cognitive and social psychology, her MA work focuses on understanding how social bonding arises from joint musical interactions through a neuroscientific lens. She was awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Canada Graduate Scholarship (2024–2025) to support her MA research.

Abstract:

Group engagement with music is incredibly powerful. Synchronized rhythms and coordinated movements foster a shared sense of identity and connectedness. Patterns of neural activity are observed to synchronize between individuals engaged in joint musical interactions, known as inter-brain synchrony. Robust increases in inter-brain synchrony have been observed particularly in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) during cooperative singing and humming tasks. However, the manner in which group musical interactions give rise to inter-brain synchronization and social bonding remains poorly understood.
This study offers a more nuanced examination of social bonding within group musical engagement, while bolstering previous neurological observations. Fifteen same-sex participants pairs with no self-reported hearing impairments will be recruited. Participants will complete a series of solo and cooperative humming tasks in an audio-only condition. Functional Near-Infrared Spectrometry (fNIRS) will be used to measure the level of inter-brain synchrony between participant pairs. Two self-report measures will be used to capture the differences in participants’ subjective sense of synchrony with their partner: the Inclusion-of-Other-in-Self (IOS) scale, as well as the Goldsmith Musical Sophistication Scale (Gold-MSI). To build on and extend previous findings, we will also assess whether the level of inter-brain coherence can be predicted from acoustic harmony. Participants’ humming sessions will be recorded to analyze the level of acoustic harmony and as a behavioural measure of synchrony.
By combining simultaneous observations of inter-brain synchronization with subjective and behavioural measures of interpersonal synchrony, we will gain a more mechanistic understanding of how humming together may facilitate social bonding.