Physiological synchrony in elite esports matches driven by competitive motivation

Although physiological synchrony (PS) is well documented in cooperative settings, recent research indicates that it can also arise in competitive interactions. However, the factors that shape PS under competitive conditions remain unclear. In one-on-one esports, two psychological factors appear central—the drive to defeat an opponent and ability to track and understand the evolving game situation—both of which tend to increase with expertise. To investigate how these expertise-linked factors shape PS during head-to-head esports competition, we recorded electrocardiograms from 37 highly skilled Street Fighter V players and analyzed 486 bouts. PS was computed as the correlation between opponents’ heart-rate time series. First, we examined how PS depended on opponent-pair skill composition by comparing elite–elite, elite–intermediate, and intermediate–intermediate pairings. PS was highest in elite–elite pairs, indicating that pronounced synchrony emerges only when both competitors possess similarly high expertise. We then probed which task factors explained this effect by manipulating match format. Players either competed under standard victory contingencies or in “sparring” bouts in which hit points were fixed and no winner could be declared, resulting in lower PS in sparring across all skill combinations. These findings suggest that PS in competitive settings may arise when autonomic shifts, driven by elite players’ heightened competitive motivation, are precisely time-locked to responses of crucial game situations. PS emerges as a potential biomarker of social attunement under competition, and design and training implications are suggested for optimizing arousal regulation and maintaining engagement in competitive human–computer interactions. • Competitive esports elicit heart-rate coupling between players • Elite–elite pairs showed the strongest physiological synchrony • Synchrony is dominated by low-frequency components rather than high-frequency • Removing victory contingencies in sparring reliably reduces synchrony