The influence of emotional visual stimuli, empathy, attachment, and emotional regulation on electroencephalographic synchronization in romantic couples

Background. Neural synchronization between individuals during social interactions is an emerging topic in neuroscience research (Hari et al., 2015; Babiloni et al., 2014). However, limited investigations have explored the brain dynamics of romantic couples in response to emotional stimuli, particularly examining the role of attachment, empathy, and emotional regulation in neural synchrony (Stern & Cassidy, 2018). Methods. An EEG hyperscanning study was conducted on 27 romantic couples, evaluating neural synchronization across different frequency bands in response to positive and negative emotional visual stimuli. Participants completed self-report questionnaires measuring attachment (ECR-R), empathy (IRI), and interpersonal emotion regulation (IERQ). Neural synchronization was analyzed in frontal and parietal regions using the circular correlation coefficient (Ccorr). Results. The analyses revealed variations in neural synchronization between romantic couples in response to the valence of emotional stimuli, with differences observed for negative compared to positive stimuli. Associations were identified between psychological factors such as empathy, emotional regulation, and attachment, and the degree of couple synchrony. Conclusion. The findings suggest that the valence of emotional stimuli and psychological and affective dynamics can influence the degree of synchrony in romantic couples, offering new perspectives on the neural basis of couple interactions. Future studies may further investigate the role of specific psychological and neurophysiological factors in interpersonal synchrony (Kinreich et al., 2017; Long et al., 2022).