Neural correlates in the time course of inferences: costs and benefits for less-skilled readers at the university level

Abstract

Inferences are an indicator of a greater reading comprehension, as they imply a combination of implicit and explicit information that usually combines a textual representation with background knowledge of the reader. The aim of this study is to explore the costs and benefits of the time course of inferences in university students with reading comprehension difficulties at 3 stages during a narration. The method used was the event-related potential (ERP) technique in order to register the brain activity of 63 teaching program students while they read familiar, less-familiar and neutral stories. Results show a slow negativity potential component with greater negativity in words coming from familiar contexts when compared to less familiar and neutral ones in the first locus; an N400 component and a Post-N400 component in the second locus, reflecting greater negativity in familiar contexts when compared to less-familiar ones; and, lastly, through the use of a lexical decision task, FN400 and N400 components were found in the third locus, especially for pseudowords. These results are interpreted as a preferably bottom-up processing, which is characterized by lexical access difficulties in less-skilled readers.