Domain-general conflict monitoring predicts neural and behavioral indices of linguistic error processing during reading comprehension.

Abstract

The ability to detect and respond to linguistic errors is critical for successful reading comprehension, but these skills can vary considerably across readers. In the current study, healthy adults (age 18-35) read short discourse scenarios for comprehension while monitoring for the presence of semantic anomalies. Using a factor analytic approach, we examined if performance in nonlinguistic conflict monitoring tasks (Stroop, AX-CPT) would predict individual differences in neural and behavioral measures of linguistic error processing. Consistent with this hypothesis, domain-general conflict monitoring predicted both readers' end-of-trial acceptability judgments and the amplitude of a late neural response (the P600) evoked by linguistic anomalies. The influence on the P600 was nonlinear, suggesting that online neural responses to linguistic errors are influenced by both the effectiveness and efficiency of domain-general conflict monitoring. These relationships were also highly specific and remained after controlling for variability in working memory capacity and verbal knowledge. Finally, we found that domain-general conflict monitoring also predicted individual variability in measures of reading comprehension, and that this relationship was partially mediated by behavioral measures of linguistic error detection. These findings inform our understanding of the role of domain-general executive functions in reading comprehension, with potential implications for the diagnosis and treatment of language impairments.

Variation in how cognitive control modulates sentence processing

“…The domain-generality of cognitive control functions used for language has been widely discussed and disputed (e.g. [6,[38][39][40]). Between the two extreme positions (all general or all specific), a middle ground, namely sub-specialization of general-purpose cognitive control for different representations within different frontal regions, has also been proposed (e.g.…”

“…Reading time was recorded for the purpose of computing the mean reading time for each participant. The practice sentence trials 4 Because we planned to use exploratory factor analysis to extract variance shared between cognitive control tasks, we chose a task that has been shown to load onto a common factor with Stroop [38]. The AX-continuous performance test (AX-CPT) task tests both proactive and reactive cognitive control.…”

“…Finally, individual differences analyses of cognitive measures are subject to reliability concerns [ 41 ]. Therefore, we used multiple tasks that tap the same construct and conducted exploratory factor analysis to extract factor scores [ 38 ]. For the dependent variables (sentence reading times and accuracies), we have reported split-half reliabilities and split-half correlations between random slopes.…”

English language Morphological Neologisms Reflecting the War in Ukraine

“…A common definition, even in specialized works, does not specify the origin of this lexical class, which plays a major role in any living language. Emerging from the needs of communication, neologisms refer to concepts, objects, and phenomena from all spheres of material and spiritual life, especially in technical and scientific language, in order to modernize and enrich it and in military and political discourse in the context of certain global events (Brothers, Zeitlin, Perrachione, Choi & Kuperberg, 2022).…”

Sustained attention as measured by RT variability is a strong modulator for the P600, but not the N400

“…Relatedly, the P600, but not N400, is absent during the attentional blink and other manipulations testing conscious vs unconscious processing of linguistics stimuli (Batterink & Neville, 2013; Kiefer, 2002; Luck et al, 1996; Rohaut & Naccache, 2017; Service et al, 2007; van Gaal et al, 2014). The P600 further correlates with indices of executive control (Brothers et al, 2021), exhibits sequential adaptation effects (Xu et al, 2021), and relates to eye movement regressions during natural reading (Dimigen et al, 2007; Metzner et al, 2017). Lastly, the P600 has also been linked to the more domain-general P3 component (Coulson et al, 1998; Sassenhagen et al, 2014; Sassenhagen & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, 2015; Sassenhagen & Fiebach, 2019), which has been related to, for instance, stimulus saliency, surprise, and context updating (Donchin, 1981; Nieuwenhuis et al, 2005; Polich, 2007).…”