Thesis supervisor: Brigitta Tóth
Location of studies (in Hungarian): BME Abbreviation of location of studies: BME
Description of the research topic:
Interpersonal synchrony is such an everyday phenomenon that we tend to forget about it and only notice when it breaks down, for example, when our partner steps on our foot while dancing. Synchrony is taken as an ideal basic state between mother and child and indeed, even very young babies synchronize their actions to their mothers. In turn mothers synchronize to their babies. However, very little is known about how this synchrony is established without the need for explicit signals like a drumbeat. Our project aims to unravel this mystery by measuring the brain activity of 3-year-old children and their mothers using EEG simultaneously. At the same time, they are endangered in tasks that need coordination and synchronization, like rolling a ball back and forth. In addition we also record the motions of both mother and child using a motion capture system. Our hypothesis is that synchrony helps the child to perform better at the task we are testing and there will be noticeable improvements after multiple test sessions. We suppose that synchrony has an optimal value, neither too loose nor too strict that relates to both the task and the mother-child pair in particular. We think in pairs which can establish and maintain this optimal level of synchronization the child learns more and faster. Furthermore we suppose that learning is also related to the emotional synchrony established within the pair as well as the child’s ability to think about its own body parts as a set of tools useful for different actions.
Baumgartner, R., Reed, D. K., Tóth, B., Best, V., Majdak, P., Colburn, H. S., & Shinn-Cunningham, B. (2017). Asymmetries in behavioral and neural responses to spectral cues demonstrate the generality of auditory looming bias. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(36), 9743-9748.
Ignatiadis, K., Baier, D., Tóth, B., & Baumgartner, R. (2021). Neural Mechanisms Underlying the Auditory Looming Bias. Auditory perception & cognition, 4(1-2), 60-73.
Required language skills: English Number of students who can be accepted: 1
Deadline for application: 2024-05-31
2024. IV. 17. ODT ülés Az ODT következő ülésére 2024. június 14-én, pénteken 10.00 órakor kerül sor a Semmelweis Egyetem Szenátusi termében (Bp. Üllői út 26. I. emelet).
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