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Conversations are an essential form of communication in daily family life. Specific patterns of caregiver-child conversations have been linked to children’s socio-cognitive development and child relationship quality beyond the immediate family environment. Recently, interpersonal neural synchronization has been proposed as a neural mechanism supporting conversation. Here, we present a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning study looking at the temporal dynamics of neural synchrony during mother-child conversation. Preschoolers (20 boys and 20 girls, M age 5, 07 years) and their mothers (M age 36.37 years) were tested simultaneously with fNIRS hyperscanning while engaging in a free verbal conversation lasting for four minutes. Neural synchrony (using wavelet transform coherence analysis) was assessed over time. Furthermore, each conversational turn was coded for conversation patterns comprising turn-taking, relevance, contingency, and intrusiveness. Results from linear mixed-effects modeling revealed that turn-taking, but not relevance, contingency, or intrusiveness predicted neural synchronization during the conversation over time. Results are discussed to point out possible variables affecting parent-child conversation quality and the potential functional role of interpersonal neural synchronization for parent-child conversation.

Interpersonal neural synchrony (INS) has been previously evidenced in mother-child interactions, yet findings concerning father-child interaction are wanting. The current experiment examined whether fathers and their 5-to 6-year-old children (N = 66) synchronize their brain activity during a naturalistic interaction, and addressed paternal and child factors related to INS. Compared to individual problem solving and rest, fatherchild dyads showed increased INS in bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and left temporo-parietal junction during cooperative problem solving. Furthermore, the father's attitude toward his role as a parent was positively related to INS during the cooperation condition. These results highlight the implication of the father's attitude to parenting in INS processes for the first time.Stefanie Hoehl and Pascal Vrti cka contributed equally. We are grateful to the fathers and children who participated in the study. We also wish to thank our master student Laura Thomsen and all other research assistants for their help with data collection and video ratings.

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Social interactions are essential for understanding others’ actions and their mental and affective states. Specifically, interpersonal coordination – also referred to as synchrony – allows actors to adjust their behaviors to one another and thus demonstrate their connectedness to each other. Much behavioral research has demonstrated the primacy of mutually synchronized social exchanges in early development. Additionally, new methodological advances now allow us to examine interpersonal synchrony not only at the behavioral and physiological but also neural level. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how infants and their caregivers actually achieve interpersonal synchrony in their exchanges. Here we discuss recent evidence showing that adults provide rhythmical information during early social interactions with their infants, such as affective touch and singing. We propose that entrainment to these social rhythms underlies the formation of interpersonal synchrony and thus stimulates reciprocal interactions between infants and their caregivers.