Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Interpersonal physiological linkage has been shown to play important roles in social activities. Studies have shown thatpeople tend to share heart rate (HR) dynamics through a joint collaborative task. In this study, we investigated whethershared HR dynamics (i.e., HR synchrony) would correlate with excitement during a joint task. Two participants played acollaborative block-stacking game (Jenga), alternating their roles as player and adviser, while their HRs being recorded.The participants evaluated their own excitement for each turn. Additional bystanders watched their playing to evaluatethe players excitement. The results showed that the players excitement increased with individual HR but also with HRsynchrony. HR synchrony also affected the evaluation of players excitement by the bystanders. These results suggestthat physiological linkage between cooperating individuals is related to the evaluation of excitement not only by playerthemselves but also by bystanders.