Can People's Brains Synchronize during Remote AR Collaboration?

Recent studies have demonstrated that brain synchrony can indicate the quality of social interaction in real-world communication. However, there is a lack of research on measurement of brain synchrony during social interactions in remote AR. In this study, we investigated the brain synchrony of remote augmented reality (AR; Study 1) and face-to-face (FTF; Study 2) interactions. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy was used to measure the brain synchrony during the tangram puzzle task. In a collaboration condition, participants worked together to solve the puzzle. In an individual condition, participants solved the puzzle independently. We recruited 46 participants in Study 1 and 48 participants in Study 2. Study 1 showed there was a significant difference in brain synchrony between the individual and collaboration conditions, and a positive correlation was observed between brain synchrony and the task performance in the collaboration condition. A comparison between Study 1 and 2 suggested that the difference between the collaboration and individual conditions was maintained, and some differences were observed in the brain synchrony between the AR and FTF interactions. These results suggest that measurement of brain synchrony is beneficial for social interaction in remote AR collaborations. The implications of these results on future remote interactions are discussed.