Clearing the garden-path: improving sentence processing through cognitive control training.

How do general-purpose cognitive abilities affect language processing and comprehension? Recent research emphasises a role for cognitive control*also called executive function (EF)*when individuals must override early parsing decisions as new evidence conflicts with their developing interpretation. We tested if training on non-syntactic EF tasks improves readers' ability to recover from misanalysis during language processing. Participants completed pre/ post-reading assessments containing temporarily ambiguous sentences susceptible to misinterpretation. Performance increases on a training task targeting conflict-resolution processes (n-back with ''lures'') predicted improvements in garden-path recovery. N-back responders*those demonstrating reliable training gains*significantly increased their comprehension accuracy across assessments. Their posttest eye-movement patterns also revealed significantly improved real-time revision following entry into disambiguating sentence regions where cognitive control is hypothesised to engage. Untrained participants and n-back non-responders showed no performance changes. The results provide insight into how nonlinguistic functions contribute to parsing and interpretation and suggest that certain language skills are amenable to improvement via domain-general EF training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]