biostudies-literaturePiazza EANICHD NIH HHSNational Institutes of Health104752https://www.ebi.ac.uk/biostudies/studies/S-EPMC8324532biostudies-literatureUnknown214Social interactions, such as joint book reading, have a well-studied influence on early development and language learning. Recent work has begun to investigate the neural mechanisms that underlie shared representations of input, documenting neural synchrony (measured using intersubject temporal correlations of neural activity) between individuals exposed to the same stimulus. Neural synchrony has been found to predict the quality of engagement with a stimulus and with communicative cues, but studies have yet to address how neural synchrony among children may relate to real-time learning. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we recorded the neural activity of 45 children (3.5-4.5 years) during joint book reading with an adult experimenter. The custom children's book containeCognitionNeural synchrony predicts children's learning of novel words.PMC8324532R03 HD079779R01 HD095912DP1 HD091948Cohen ATrach JLew-Williams CPiazza EAfalseNeural synchrony predicts children's learning of novel words.Social interactions, such as joint book reading, have a well-studied influence on early development and language learning. Recent work has begun to investigate the neural mechanisms that underlie shared representations of input, documenting neural synchrony (measured using intersubject temporal correlations of neural activity) between individuals exposed to the same stimulus. Neural synchrony has been found to predict the quality of engagement with a stimulus and with communicative cues, but studies have yet to address how neural synchrony among children may relate to real-time learning. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we recorded the neural activity of 45 children (3.5-4.5 years) during joint book reading with an adult experimenter. The custom children's book containe2021-01-01T00:00:00Z2021 Sep2025-04-27T00:14:49.504Z2025-04-06T17:47:51.351ZS-EPMC83245323396578210.1016/j.cognition.2021.104752