Study says ‘brain matching’ is the most successful tool for socialising

Are you a mind reader?

Well, you could be more likely to be attracted to someone you feel that you 'get' emotionally. A study published in the journal PNAS found that we are more drawn to those we can understand. In order to discover if 'brain matching' really does affect our ability to become attracted to someone, nanoscientists at the University of Lübeck had 90 people watch video clips of women who made expressions with their face of sadness or fear. Then the people had to judge how the people felt and if they felt confident they had 'read her right' their brain activity showed they felt more attracted to them. The author of the study, Silke Anders said understanding another person's intentions and emotions is the basis for most successful social interaction.

 "To accomplish a common goal, partners must understand and continuously update information about their partner’s current intentions and motivation, anticipate the other’s behavior, and adapt their own behavior accordingly."

He says the ability to 'read' someone like this can evolve over time:

"What I believe makes our findings really exciting is the fact that understanding and personal attraction seem to depend on both the sender's brain and the perceiver's brain, and on how well they match. If the emotional signals sent by a sender—for example, a facial expression of fear or sadness—can efficiently be processed by the perceiver's brain, then their reward system will fire and they will feel attracted to the sender."

Now, dear husband - I rest my case.