ArticleNature communications2021
Neural alignment predicts learning outcomes in students taking an introduction to computer science course.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Interpersonal Neural Synchronization Predicting Learning Outcomes From Teaching-Learning Interaction: A Meta-Analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Pooled it
- Student teacher inter brain coupling forecast cross semester academic fluctuation in real world classrooms.NPJ science of learning · 2026Article
- Enhanced word learning and neural synchrony during children's storytelling.NPJ science of learning · 2026Article
- Text embedding models yield detailed conceptual knowledge maps derived from short multiple-choice quizzes.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Neural patterns reflect conceptual grasp of novice students following first class learning in physics.NPJ science of learning · 2026Article
- Fragmentation and multithreading of experience in the default-mode network.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Predicting Real-Life Cognitive Scores From Functional Connectivity.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- Boundaries in the eyes: Measure event segmentation during naturalistic video watching using eye tracking.Behavior research methods · 2025Article
- Music-evoked reactivation during continuous perception is associated with enhanced subsequent recall of naturalistic events.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- A Rapid Cortical Learning Process Supporting Students' Knowledge Construction During Real Classroom Teaching.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Thinking as Analogy-Making: Toward a Neural Process Account of General Intelligence.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Review
- The impact of teachers' autonomy support on students' academic performance from the perspective of hyperscanning: the mediating role of autonomy need satisfaction.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Knowledge concept recognition in the learning brain via fMRI classification.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Applying interpersonal neuroscience for understanding classroom learning in students with ADHD.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Compensation or Preservation? Different Roles of Functional Lateralization in Speech Perception of Older Non-musicians and Musicians.Neuroscience bulletin · 2024Article
- A shared model-based linguistic space for transmitting our thoughts from brain to brain in natural conversations.Neuron · 2024Article
- How a speaker herds the audience: multibrain neural convergence over time during naturalistic storytelling.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2024Article
- The paradoxical brain: paradoxes impact conflict perspectives through increased neural alignment.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2024Article
- Article
- Onscreen presence of instructors in video lectures affects learners' neural synchrony and visual attention during multimedia learning.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
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Abstract
Despite major advances in measuring human brain activity during and after educational experiences, it is unclear how learners internalize new content, especially in real-life and online settings. In this work, we introduce a neural approach to predicting and assessing learning outcomes in a real-life setting. Our approach hinges on the idea that successful learning involves forming the right set of neural representations, which are captured in canonical activity patterns shared across individuals. Specifically, we hypothesized that learning is mirrored in neural alignment: the degree to which an individual learner's neural representations match those of experts, as well as those of other learners. We tested this hypothesis in a longitudinal functional MRI study that regularly scanned college students enrolled in an introduction to computer science course. We additionally scanned graduate student experts in computer science. We show that alignment among students successfully predicts overall performance in a final exam. Furthermore, within individual students, we find better learning outcomes for concepts that evoke better alignment with experts and with other students, revealing neural patterns associated with specific learned concepts in individuals.
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