The study compared the brain activation patterns associated with the comprehension of written and spoken Portuguese sentences. An fMRI study measured brain activity while participants read and listened to sentences about general world knowledge. Participants had to decide if the sentences were true or false. To mirror the transient nature of spoken sentences, visual input was presented in rapid serial visual presentation format. The results showed a common core of amodal left inferior frontal and middle temporal gyri activation, as well as modality specific brain activation associated with listening and reading comprehension. Reading comprehension was associated with more left-lateralized activation and with left inferior occipital cortex (including fusiform gyrus) activation. Listening comprehension was associated with extensive bilateral temporal cortex activation and more overall activation of the whole cortex. Results also showed individual differences in brain activation for reading comprehension. Readers with lower working memory capacity showed more activation of right-hemisphere areas (spillover of activation) and more activation in the prefrontal cortex, potentially associated with more demand placed on executive control processes. Readers with higher working memory capacity showed more activation in a frontal-posterior network of areas (left angular and precentral gyri, and right inferior frontal gyrus). The activation of this network may be associated with phonological rehearsal of linguistic information when reading text presented in rapid serial visual format. The study demonstrates the modality fingerprints for language comprehension and indicates how lowand high working memory capacity readers deal with reading text presented in serial format.

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Much of the recent research on discourse comprehension has centered on the readers' ability to construct coherent mental representations of texts. In order to form a unifi ed representation of a given text, a reader must be able to join the information presented in the text with his/her background knowledge to construe the meaning that may not be explicitly stated, through the generation of inferences. In this study, the process of inference making by native speakers of English while reading two different types of text was investigated using electroencephalography (EEG). Subjects read narrative and expository paragraphs, and judged the plausibility of the fi nal sentence of each four-sentence long paragraph by reference to the previous information. The analysis of data focused on the N400 component and on accuracy of behavioral responses. N400 amplitudes revealed that exposition was more demanding than narration in terms of semantic processing, whereas the behavioral data showed that subjects were more prone to generate inferences when reading exposition. Overall, this study suggests that these two types of text are processed differently by the brain, as revealed by the changes in the N400 component across the last sentences of the paragraphs.

Much of the recent research on discourse comprehension has centered on the readers' ability to construct coherent mental representations of texts. In order to form a unifi ed representation of a given text, a reader must be able to join the information presented in the text with his/her background knowledge to construe the meaning that may not be explicitly stated, through the generation of inferences. In this study, the process of inference making by native speakers of English while reading two different types of text was investigated using electroencephalography (EEG). Subjects read narrative and expository paragraphs, and judged the plausibility of the fi nal sentence of each four-sentence long paragraph by reference to the previous information. The analysis of data focused on the N400 component and on accuracy of behavioral responses. N400 amplitudes revealed that exposition was more demanding than narration in terms of semantic processing, whereas the behavioral data showed that subjects were more prone to generate inferences when reading exposition. Overall, this study suggests that these two types of text are processed differently by the brain, as revealed by the changes in the N400 component across the last sentences of the paragraphs.

This paper presents a review of the literature aimed at exploring the main findings regarding studies on the issue of bilingualism and working memory.  It is organized with an initial discussion on the construct of working memory and its development through time, followed by the topic of bilingualism, with general evidence of its advantages and disadvantages to the cognitive system, and finally the examination of current pieces of research addressing working memory in bilingual children and adults.  The objective is to illustrate what contributions research has shown so far and what future directions might be.Keywords: bilingualism; working memory; cognition. RESUMO: Este artigo apresenta uma revisão de literatura com o intuito de explorar as descobertas mais relevantes acerca de estudos sobre bilinguismo e memória de trabalho.  Inicialmente, discute-se o construto memória de trabalho e como o mesmo tem evoluído enquanto objeto de pesquisa.  Na sequência, apresenta-se a questão do bilinguismo, trazendo-se evidências gerais de estudos acerca de suas vantagens e desvantagens em termos cognitivos. Por fim, as pesquisas mais recentes acerca da relação entre memória de trabalho e bilinguismo em grupos de crianças e adultos são apresentadas.  O objetivo principal é fazer um apanhado geral sobre quais contribuições estas pesquisas tem apresentado até o momento e quais as direções futuras que novas pesquisas podem vir a tomar a partir disso. Palavras-chave: bilinguismo; memória de trabalho; cognição.

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RESUMO. O objetivo deste estudo foi investigar se propósitos de leitura diferentes, estudo e lazer, influem na geração de inferências. O estudo envolveu a análise de resultados obtidos após a aplicação do Protocolo de Pausa (Cavalcanti, 1989) adaptado por (Tomitch, 2003), a seis informantes femininas, durante a leitura de dois textos: um, visando à leitura de estudo, extraído da Revista Veja, sobre o plebiscito acerca de armas, que ocorreu em 2005, cujo título é Eu vou ser contra, e o outro, visando leitura de lazer, extraído do site Jornal de Poesia, é uma biografia de Cecília Meirelles. Os resultados indicaram que um número maior de inferências foi gerado para o texto lido com o objetivo de estudo, e as inferências mais frequentes foram, para o texto de estudo: explicações, avaliações e repetições, e para o texto de lazer: explicações, repetições e avaliações.Palavras-chave: leitura e cognição, propósito de leitura, geração de inferências.ABSTRACT. Reading and cognition: do different reading purposes influence inference generation? The objective of this study was to investigate whether different reading purposes -for study or entertainment -have influence on inference generation. Data was obtained through the use of Pause Protocols (Cavalcanti, 1989) adapted by (Tomitch, 2003) with six female participants during the reading of two texts: one, aiming at reading for study, taken from Veja magazine, talks about the gun control referendum of 2005 and is titled I will be against; the other text, aiming at reading for entertainment, extracted from the Jornal de Poesia website, is a biography of Cecília Meirelles. Results showed that a larger number of inferences were generated for the text that was read for study purposes. The most frequent inferences for the study document were explanations, evaluations and repetitions; whereas for the entertainment text, explanations, repetitions and evaluations prevailed.