Situation updating during discourse comprehension recruits right posterior portion of the multiple-demand network.

Abstract

Discourse comprehension involves the construction of a mental representation of the situation model as well as a continuous update of this representation. This mental update is cognitively demanding and likely engages the multiple-demand network. However, there is little evidence for the involvement of the multiple-demand network during situation updating. In this study, we used fMRI to test whether situation updating based on the change of spatial location activated the multiple-demand network. In a discourse comprehension task, readers read two-sentence discourses in which the second sentence either continues or introduces a shift of the spatial location information presented in the first sentence. Compared to situation continuation, situation updating reliably activated the right superior parietal lobule. This area is a part of the multiple-demand network as defined by a digit N-back localizer task and locates within the dorsal attention network as defined in the previous study by Yeo et al. in 2011. Our results provide evidence for the reliable involvement of a specific area of the multiple-demand network in situation updating during high-level discourse processing.