More broadly, this work establishes IPS as a scalable marker of real-world social engagement and provides a framework for testing theories of shared attention, reciprocal interaction, and sensory–cognitive co-regulation in everyday environments.

Together, these findings demonstrate that IPS emerges spontaneously in naturalistic social settings and is jointly constrained by physical proximity, social affiliation, social context, and the acoustic environment.

Acoustic conditions also modulated IPS: low-to-moderate sound pressure levels (SPL) and moderate-to-high signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) enhanced synchrony, while high SPL reduced it to levels characteristic of non-interactive contexts.

Context matters. Synchrony emerged during close-proximity interactions and when people were exposed to common stimuli, but not during dispersed, non-interactive settings.

Synchrony was stronger for pairs who already knew each other — even after controlling for being in the same place.

People’s heart rates synchronized reliably when they were physically close, indicating that shared spatial and contextual exposure was sufficient to produce IPS.

To address this, we collected continuous heart rate, GPS, and acoustic recordings from 72 participants across three independent multi-day trips to New York City, totaling >1000 hours of multimodal data.

Although IPS has been documented in laboratory and high-arousal settings, its emergence in everyday social interactions remains elusive.

Our study presents the first large-scale evidence that interpersonal physiological synchrony (IPS) emerges in everyday social interactions and is systematically modulated by physical proximity, social familiarity, social context, and acoustic conditions.

Physical proximity, social familiarity, and acoustic environment modulate heart rate synchrony in real-world social interactions Human social behaviour unfolds in complex real-world environments shaped by social and acoustic factors, yet markers of social engagement and connection remain elusive. Interpersonal physiological syn...

🫀 New preprint alert! 🌆
Thrilled to share the first paper of my PhD on heart-rate synchrony during social interactions in urban environments. @sinelabdtu.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The social, decoupled self: interpersonal synchronization of breathing alters intrapersonal cardiorespiratory coupling People synchronize their periodic behavioural and physiological rhythms with each other during social interaction. While this interpersonal synchronization has largely been associated with positive ef...

🫁❤️New preprint out: The social, decoupled self

We show effects of interpersonal synchronization of physiological rhythms on intrapersonal cardiorespiratory coupling: when we sync our breathing, our breathing–heart rhythms decouple, with a perturbed phase-relationship
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

CALL for papers: special issue on joint action in Acta Psychologica! #jointaction

We invite empirical, computational, and theoretical contributions.

Deadline to submit: Feb. 1/2026.

Please find more information here, and share widely: www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

With my amazing colleagues presenting our exciting projects from @sinelabdtu.bsky.social!

Had an amazing time presenting our work in beautiful Dubrovnik with the best team!

Postdoc in Social Dynamics and Complex Systems - DTU Compute Are you interested in uncovering the mechanisms underlying human social dynamics between dyads, groups, and social networks, during real-time social interaction? We invite applications for an appointm...

We're hiring a Postdoc!
Join us for 13 months of research on computational modelling of social dynamics!

We're looking for a candidate with a background in complex systems.

Please spread the word or get in touch if interested!
efzu.fa.em2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

First time at #SANS2025!
Thrilled to hear about all the fascinating work and to present our own from @sinelabdtu.bsky.social
@ale-dabr.bsky.social!