synchronising hearts
The science of heart connection
What we measure
We measure how heart rates change with time. This is called Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Our heart rates rise and fall with exercise, hormones and breathing, but also with our emotions. When we experience positive emotions and connect meaningfully with somebody, our heart rate patterns change as you can see in the blue line opposite. The green line is a measure of this change of pattern.
Our research
In our experiments we simultaneously measure the heart rate variability of pairs or groups of people as they experience different situations. This could be two friends, romantic partners or an audience at a performance. We then analyse the two HRV patterns and estimate the amount of synchronisation between them before displaying the results.
An example of how the HRV patterns of two people synchronise when they are experiencing postive feelings for each other
Our discoveries
Our experiments confirm academic research that has shown that the heart rate patterns of two or more people move into synchronisation when they are in a positive relationship. Our research has gone on to investigate the mechanism underlying this synchronisation.
We have shown that while conventional sensory information is important, there is strong evidence of another sense being involved - perhaps electromagnetic or quantum in nature. Such a mechanism may explain the nonlocal and intentional correlations that we have observed.
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