Longitudinal analysis of social isolation effects on finger tapping in the Blursday database.

The Blursday database is a collection of data obtained online from a longitudinal study where participants were asked to participate in several behavioral tasks and questionnaires during the COVID-19 pandemic from their homes. In this study, we analyzed the published data to explore (1) the longitudinal changes in temporal cognition observed from the data collected in the home-based setting (2), the effects of the voluntary quarantine measures implemented in Japan on temporal cognition, (3) whether the participant's temporal cognition is altered by the change in their psychological state or their cognitive abilities, and (4) whether the effects of the quarantine measures depend on the age of the individual. Results show that confinement measures were good predictors for the performance in both spontaneous finger-tapping task and paced finger-tapping task, though these were dependent on the age of the participant. In addition, cognitive scores were good predictors of the performance in the paced finger-tapping task but not the spontaneous finger-tapping task. Overall, this study provides evidence suggesting changes in both psychological, cognitive, and temporal cognition during the pandemic on the Japanese population despite its voluntary measures to deal with the new situation.

Interpersonal physiological synchrony is associated with first person and third person subjective assessments of excitement during cooperative joint tasks.

Interpersonal physiological synchrony has been shown to play important roles in social activities. While most studies have shed light on the effects of physiological synchrony on recognition of the group state, such as cohesion or togetherness, the effect of physiological synchrony on the recognition of emotional experience has not been adequately researched. In this study, we examined how physiological synchrony is associated with first- and third-person emotion recognition during a joint task. Two participants played a cooperative block-stacking game (Jenga), alternating their roles as player and adviser, while their heart rates were recorded. The participants evaluated their own emotional experience for each turn. Bystanders watched the game to evaluate the players' emotions. Results showed that the players' subjective excitement increased not only with their own heart rate, but also with increased heart rate synchrony with their adviser. Heart rate synchrony between player and adviser also related to increased intensity in perceived excitement from the bystanders. Given that both first- and third-person emotion recognition can have cumulative impacts on a group, the relationship between physiological synchrony and emotion recognition observed in the present study will help deepen understanding of the psychophysiological mechanisms underlying larger group phenomena such as crowd excitement.