Neural synchrony, the correlation of brain activity patterns across people,
is an emerging method for exploring how teams collaborate. Correlated brain
activity is suggested to underlie convergent information processing and
understanding between people. Previous studies have found that the quality
of communication between group members affects neural synchrony. Taking
this into consideration, the current study aims to further explore the role
of communication in neural synchrony. Physiological measures of the brain
were obtained using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) targeting
the frontal lobe and temporal-parietal junction during a team game where
four-person groups were required to collaborate to maximize their score on
a joint simulated cooking task. We hypothesize that the ability to
communicate within a team would result in increased neural synchrony while
playing the team simulation game, as opposed to not being able to
communicate during the game. Results from this study will provide more
information about how communication contributes to shared information
processing and understanding among team members.