ArticleCerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)2021
Incremental Language Comprehension Difficulty Predicts Activity in the Language Network but Not the Multiple Demand Network.
Article in Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 44 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
44 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 76 citations in OpenAlex.
- Non-literal language processing is jointly supported by the language and theory of mind networks: Evidence from a novel meta-analytic fMRI approach.Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior · 2023Pooled it
- Language comprehension in chronic aphasia relies on the language network, not the Multiple Demand network.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Executive resources shape the impact of language predictability across the adult lifespan.eLife · 2026Article
- Beyond behavior: a neurocognitive agenda for investigating the neural underpinnings of successful high-technology augmentative and alternative communication in adults.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- Text difficulty modulates the surprisal effect in self-paced reading.Reading and writing · 2026Article
- Multilingual Computational Models Capture a Shared Meaning Component in Brain Responses across 21 Languages.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- The HeCz corpus: A large, richly annotated reading corpus of newspaper headlines in Czech.Behavior research methods · 2025Article
- The neural correlates of novel versus familiar metaphors in healthy young adults: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Article
- A two-dimensional space of linguistic representations shared across individuals.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Predicting the next sentence (not word) in large language models: What model-brain alignment tells us about discourse comprehension.Science advances · 2024Article
- The language network as a natural kind within the broader landscape of the human brain.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2024Review
- Disentangling neuroplasticity mechanisms in post-stroke language recovery.Brain and language · 2024Review
- Conversational production and comprehension: fMRI-evidence reminiscent of but deviant from the classical Broca-Wernicke model.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2024Article
- Driving and suppressing the human language network using large language models.Nature human behaviour · 2024Article
- Functional characterization of the language network of polyglots and hyperpolyglots with precision fMRI.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2024Article
- Will you read how I will read? Naturalistic fMRI predictors of emergent reading.Neuropsychologia · 2024Article
- Domain-general and language-specific contributions to speech production in a second language: an fMRI study using functional localizers.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Semantic composition in experimental and naturalistic paradigms.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
- Semantic-specific and domain-general mechanisms for integration and update of contextual information.Human brain mapping · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 6 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
What role do domain-general executive functions play in human language comprehension? To address this question, we examine the relationship between behavioral measures of comprehension and neural activity in the domain-general "multiple demand" (MD) network, which has been linked to constructs like attention, working memory, inhibitory control, and selection, and implicated in diverse goal-directed behaviors. Specifically, functional magnetic resonance imaging data collected during naturalistic story listening are compared with theory-neutral measures of online comprehension difficulty and incremental processing load (reading times and eye-fixation durations). Critically, to ensure that variance in these measures is driven by features of the linguistic stimulus rather than reflecting participant- or trial-level variability, the neuroimaging and behavioral datasets were collected in nonoverlapping samples. We find no behavioral-neural link in functionally localized MD regions; instead, this link is found in the domain-specific, fronto-temporal "core language network," in both left-hemispheric areas and their right hemispheric homotopic areas. These results argue against strong involvement of domain-general executive circuits in language comprehension.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.