Modality-specificity of the neural correlates of linguistic and non-linguistic demand

Abstract Imaging studies of language processing in clinical populations can be complicated to interpret for several reasons, one being the difficulty matching effortfulness across individuals or tasks. To better understand how effortful linguistic is reflected functional activity, we investigated neural correlates task and non-linguistic contexts auditory modality, then compared our findings a recent analogous experiment visual modality different cohort. Nineteen neurologically normal were scanned with fMRI as they performed (semantic matching) (melodic matching), each two levels difficulty. We found that left hemisphere frontal temporal regions, well right inferior gyrus, modulated by demand, not demand. This was broadly similar what previously observed modality. In contrast, multiple demand (MD) network, set brain regions thought support cognitive flexibility many contexts, neither nor finding striking contradistinction where MD network robustly both Our suggest while irrespective modulation inherent processing, but rather depends on specific factors.