Good enough or resource reduction? Understanding sentence processing challenges in mild traumatic brain injury
Year: 2026
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) often leads to subtle cognitive-communication difficulties. This study combined behavioural measures, eye-tracking, and cognitive tasks to investigate sentence processing in individuals with mTBI. Twenty-five participants with mTBI and 30 neurotypical controls completed a sentence-picture matching task featuring canonical and noncanonical sentence structures while eye movements were recorded. Cognitive function was assessed using working memory and attention tasks. Although aggregate group differences were minimal, eye-tracking measures revealed group differences in attentional allocation during sentence processing, suggesting altered coordination of cognitive resources following mTBI. These findings are most consistent with resource reduction accounts of sentence comprehension, which posit that comprehension difficulties arise from reduced efficiency in deploying cognitive resources as processing demands increase. These results additionally highlight the value of multimodal approaches for detecting subtle language processing differences following mTBI.
Authors: Addison Vogt, Ileana Ratiu, Arianna N. LaCroix
Institutions: Purdue University West Lafayette, Arizona State University
Language: English
Subfield: Epidemiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7160281169