Fig. 5. Knowledge structure alignment during the exam correlates with performance.

a Student and class knowledge structures are correlated on a question-by-question basis to derive knowledge structure alignment during the exam. Cell i, j in the student’s knowledge structure is the correlation between the student’s pattern for question i with the class pattern for question j. Student and mean class knowledge structures are then correlated on a row-by-row (question-by-question) basis. b Left, within-subject correlation between alignment-to-class and exam score in a single ROI, in a single student. Each violet dot represents a single question. Right, within-subject correlation between alignment-to-class and exam score in a single ROI, trendlines for all students shown. Red, the trendline of the student shown on the left. Black, mean across all students. Asterisks denote significant correlation (one-sided permutation test, corrected), *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01. c Correlation between knowledge structure alignment-to-class and exam score, searchlight analysis results shown. Voxels showing significant correlation are shown in color (one-sided permutation test, p < 0.05, corrected). A control analysis for response length is shown in Supplementary Fig. 2c. Searchlight results for alignment-to-experts are shown in Supplementary Fig. 3. Note the correspondence between the alignment-to-class maps here and in Fig. 4. LH left hemisphere, RH right hemisphere, Ant. anterior, Post. posterior.