Carmel Moalem
PH.D Student
Sagol School of Neuroscience
Investigating Neural and Gaze Synchrony During Cooperation and Competition Using fNIRS and Mobile Eye-Tracking
Project description
Social synchrony is defined as the coordination of gaze, movement, and neural activity between individuals. It is fundamental to human interaction, yet we know surprisingly little about how it develops during childhood or how different social contexts shape it. Cooperation and competition are dimensions of social interaction, both present in our day-to-day lives. However, their effects on social synchrony have not been compared, especially among peers during middle childhood.
My project examines both neural and gaze synchrony in child dyads (7-8 years) and adult dyads as they engage in game tasks under three conditions: solo play, cooperation and competition. By using concurrent fNIRS hyperscanning to measure brain activity, and mobile eye tracking to capture gaze patterns, we can observe how these two forms of synchrony relate to each other in social interactions and under different social contexts.
This research will advance our understanding of how social synchrony develops and how different social contexts shape that synchrony in childhood.
About me
I am a PhD student at the Sagol School of Neuroscience in Tel Aviv University, under the supervision of Dr. Sagi Jaffe-Dax. I hold a BSc in Psychology and Biology with an emphasis on Neuroscience and an MSc in Neuroscience from the Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University. My PhD research focuses on neural dynamics across development, examining different aspects of cognition from infancy to adulthood.