Scientists from the University of Helsinki found that the brain waves of two players playing together online were synchronized even if they were in different rooms. Research published in the journal neuropsychology.
When two people communicate in the real world, they experience neural synchronization. Scientists believe this helps facilitate empathy and cooperation during face-to-face communication. It turns out that a similar process occurs when playing together online.
Psychologists analyzed the brain waves of several pairs of people playing a racing game together. Participants were housed in separate soundproofed rooms. This experiment also showed that synchronization of alpha and gamma frequencies improves game performance.
The study’s authors believe that social online interactions can activate key empathy mechanisms that can lead to better social relationships in the real world outside of games.