{"doi":"10.1101/2020.04.15.043844","title":"Incremental language comprehension difficulty predicts activity in the language network but not the multiple demand network","abstract":"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, fMRI data collected during naturalistic story listening are compared to 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 non-overlapping 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 homologues. These results argue against strong involvement of domain-general executive circuits in language comprehension.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":120275,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":11,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9419,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":235209,"name":"Idan Blank","orcid":"0000-0001-7057-8391","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":557318,"name":"Cory Shain","orcid":"0000-0002-2704-7197","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":274010,"name":"Richard Futrell","orcid":"0000-0003-4964-9524","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":369882,"name":"Roger Lévy","orcid":"0000-0002-4493-8864","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":413717,"name":"Titus von der Malsburg","orcid":"0000-0001-5925-5145","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":557319,"name":"Nathaniel J. Smith","orcid":"0000-0003-1631-8198","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":312662,"name":"Edward Gibson","orcid":"0000-0002-5912-883X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":235208,"name":"Evelina Fedorenko","orcid":"0000-0003-3823-514X","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":337241,"name":"Leila Wehbe","orcid":"0000-0001-8545-2062","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":173,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:14:33.640077Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}