Shpurov Ilya Yu, Vlasova Roza M, Rumshiskaya Alena D, Rozovskaya Renata I, Mershina Elena A, Sinitsyn Valentin E, Pechenkova Ekaterina V
Research Institute of Neuropsychology of Speech and Writing, Moscow, Russia.
Department of Psychiatry, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2020 Aug 28;14:290. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2020.00290. eCollection 2020.
Group problem solving is a prototypical complex collective intellectual activity. Psychological research provides compelling evidence that problem solving in groups is both qualitatively and quantitatively different from doing so alone. However, the question of whether individual and collective problem solving involve the same neural substrate has not yet been addressed, mainly due to methodological limitations. In the current study, functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed to compare brain activation when participants solved Raven-like matrix problems in a small group and individually. In the group condition, the participant in the scanner was able to discuss the problem with other team members using a special communication device. In the individual condition, the participant was required to think aloud while solving the problem in the silent presence of the other team members. Greater activation was found in several brain regions during group problem solving, including the medial prefrontal cortex; lateral parietal, cingulate, precuneus and retrosplenial cortices; frontal and temporal poles. These areas have been identified as potential components of the so-called "social brain" on the basis of research using offline judgments of material related to socializing. Therefore, this study demonstrated the actual involvement of these regions in real-time social interactions, such as group problem solving. However, further connectivity analysis revealed that the social brain components are co-activated, but do not increase their coupling during cooperation as would be suggested for a holistic network. We suggest that the social mode of the brain may be described instead as a re-configuration of connectivity between basic networks, and we found decreased connectivity between the language and salience networks in the group compared to the individual condition. A control experiment showed that the findings from the main experiment cannot be entirely accounted for by discourse comprehension. Thus, the study demonstrates affordances provided by the presented new technique for neuroimaging the "group mind," implementing the single-brain version of the second-person neuroscience approach.
团队解决问题是一种典型的复杂集体智力活动。心理学研究提供了令人信服的证据，表明团队解决问题在质量和数量上都与独自解决问题有所不同。然而，个体和集体解决问题是否涉及相同的神经基质这一问题尚未得到解决，主要是由于方法上的局限性。在当前的研究中，进行了功能磁共振成像，以比较参与者在小组中以及单独解决类似瑞文推理矩阵问题时的大脑激活情况。在小组条件下，扫描仪中的参与者能够使用特殊的通信设备与其他团队成员讨论问题。在个体条件下，要求参与者在其他团队成员安静在场的情况下边解决问题边大声思考。在团队解决问题的过程中，发现几个脑区有更强的激活，包括内侧前额叶皮层；外侧顶叶、扣带回、楔前叶和压后皮质；额极和颞极。基于使用与社交相关材料的离线判断的研究，这些区域已被确定为所谓“社会脑”的潜在组成部分。因此，本研究证明了这些区域在实时社交互动（如团队解决问题）中的实际参与。然而，进一步的连通性分析表明，社会脑组件是共同激活的，但在合作过程中它们之间的耦合并没有像整体网络那样增加。我们认为，大脑的社会模式可能反而被描述为基本网络之间连通性的重新配置，并且我们发现与个体条件相比，小组中语言网络和突显网络之间的连通性降低。一项对照实验表明，主要实验的结果不能完全由话语理解来解释。因此，该研究展示了所提出的用于对“群体思维”进行神经成像的新技术所提供的作用，实现了第二人称神经科学方法的单脑版本。
