Wavelet coherence reveals entrainment of heart rate variability among people involved in group activities

The study of group dynamics is of primary importance in psychology and medicine because group dynamics affects the state of each member in a group. We study the RR interval time series, a heart rate measure, for a group of individuals involved in Kundalini meditation sessions. We analyze individual signals and study the wavelet coherence among the heart rate variability of different individuals. For specific activities, we found a high degree of coherence among all the people in the group. We also propose a novel method to detect temporally varying connections among the individuals based on the coherence of their heart rate.