Recent quotes:

When people 'click' they respond faster to each other: Study reveals the science of connection -- ScienceDaily

Do outside observers also use response times to infer when two people "click?" To test this, respondents from Amazon's Mechanical Turk listened to audio clips of conversations for which the response times had been manipulated to be faster, slower or the original speed (control condition). Consistent with the results from the earlier two studies, outside observers thought two speakers were more connected when their conversations contained faster rather than slower response times. Because these conversation clips were identical except for response times, this study demonstrates that response times alone are a powerful signal of social connection. "It's well-established that, on average, there's about a quarter of a second gap between turns during a conversation. Our study is the first to look at how meaningful that gap is, in terms of connection," says senior author Thalia Wheatley, the Lincoln Filene Professor in Human Relations at Dartmouth, and principal investigator of the Dartmouth Social Systems Laboratory. "When people feel like they can almost finish each other's sentences, they close that 250-millisecond gap, and that's when two people are clicking."
#synchronize #conversation #coupling #relationship - sciencedaily.com

Do lovers always tease each other? Study shows how couples handle laughter and banter -- ScienceDaily

The researchers observed that provoking others to laugh at you primarily has positive effects: "Women reported more often that they tended to be satisfied with their relationship and felt more attracted to their partner. They and their partners also tended to be equally satisfied with their sex life," Brauer continues. Being afraid of being laughed at, on the other hand, tended to have negative effects: people who have this fear are less content in their relationship and also tend to mistrust their partner. This also has consequences for the partner: men said more frequently that they did not really feel satisfied with their sex life if their partner was afraid of being laughed at.
#marriage #comedy #coupling #laughter - sciencedaily.com

A heavy working memory load may sink brainwave 'synch' -- ScienceDaily

They suggest that the "coupling," or synchrony, of brain waves among three key regions breaks down in specific ways when visual working memory load becomes too much to handle. "When you reach capacity there is a loss of feedback coupling," said senior author Earl Miller, Picower Professor of Neuroscience at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. That loss of synchrony means the regions can no longer communicate with each other to sustain working memory.
#synchronize #memory #coupling - sciencedaily.com