Shared understanding is correlated with shared neural responses in the default mode network
Mai Nguyen, Tamara Vanderwal, Uri Hasson preprint
People who interpret an abstract shape animation similarly also show similar brain activity in the default mode network (DMN), even when the story is presented as a verbal description instead of the animation. In an fMRI study, participants watched a 7-minute animation of geometric shapes moving in a way that implied a social narrative, while others heard concrete verbal descriptions of either the social story or the physical movements. After scanning, participants freely recalled their interpretation. The more similar two people's interpretations were, the more similar their DMN responses, and this similarity held across the different stimulus modalities. The DMN appears sensitive to subtle individual differences in narrative interpretation yet resilient to large differences in how the narrative is presented.