Center For Mind, Brain, And Culture

SUZANNE DIKKER Neuroscience, Utrech University, NL and New York University Brains in harmony: Connecting art, neuroscience and education outside of the laboratory. Neuroscience research has produced tremendous insight into how the human brain supports dynamic social interactions. Still, laboratory-generated findings do not always straightforwardly generalize to real-world environments. To fill this gap, I collaborate with scientists, artists, and educators to take neuroscience out of the laboratory, into schools, museums, and underserved neighborhoods. In one series of studies, we partnered with New York City high schools to collect brain data during class. We find that brain-to-brain synchrony among students predicts classroom social dynamics and student engagement, two factors that have been found critical for student learning. In another project, we recorded brain data from thousands of museum visitors as they engaged in face-to-face interactions and find that empathy, social closeness and mood predict br