TY - JOUR
T1 - The impact of mild traumatic brain injury on reading comprehension and eye movements
T2 - preliminary results
AU - Ratiu, Ileana
AU - Fissel-Brannick, Schea
AU - Whiting, Miyka
AU - Murnion, Lindsay
AU - Azuma, Tamiko
N1 - Funding Information:
This research study was not funded by any agency or grant. Three authors, IR, SF and TA, are employed by the affiliated universities. Two authors, MW and LM, are past students at the affiliated university. The lead author presented a portion of this research at the Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, for which she received financial support from Midwestern University. No author received honoraria for speaking at a symposium. The authors have no other financial or nonfinancial relationships to disclose.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors
PY - 2022/3/1
Y1 - 2022/3/1
N2 - Introduction: Individuals who sustain a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) can suffer from executive function, working memory, and attention deficits, which can impact functional task performance, including reading comprehension. Individuals with mTBI commonly report reading difficulties, but such difficulties have been historically difficult to capture using behavioral measures. The current study examined reading performance in those with and without mTBI using eye-tracking measures, which may be more sensitive to reading impairment in mTBI. Method/Results: In Experiment 1, 26 participants with a history of mTBI and 26 healthy control participants completed working memory (WM) and reading comprehension tasks. We found no differences in behavioral measures but found that spontaneous eye-blinking frequency was lower during the reading task in the mTBI group. In Experiment 2, we explored the impact of auditory distraction (e.g., multi-talker babble) on reading and memory performance. Twenty-three new participants with a history of mTBI and 26 healthy control participants completed a short-term memory (STM) task, a WM task, and a reading comprehension task under two distraction conditions. As in Experiment 1, we found no differences on behavioral measures, but observed significant differences on spontaneous eye-blinking frequency between those with and without mTBI. Group differences in distraction effects were also observed and performance on the WM task predicted reading comprehension performance. Conclusions: The lack of differences on behavioral measures between groups, but lower frequencies of spontaneous eye blinking in the mTBI group suggests that while these individuals successfully completed the reading comprehension task, they may require more cognitive resources to do so.
AB - Introduction: Individuals who sustain a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) can suffer from executive function, working memory, and attention deficits, which can impact functional task performance, including reading comprehension. Individuals with mTBI commonly report reading difficulties, but such difficulties have been historically difficult to capture using behavioral measures. The current study examined reading performance in those with and without mTBI using eye-tracking measures, which may be more sensitive to reading impairment in mTBI. Method/Results: In Experiment 1, 26 participants with a history of mTBI and 26 healthy control participants completed working memory (WM) and reading comprehension tasks. We found no differences in behavioral measures but found that spontaneous eye-blinking frequency was lower during the reading task in the mTBI group. In Experiment 2, we explored the impact of auditory distraction (e.g., multi-talker babble) on reading and memory performance. Twenty-three new participants with a history of mTBI and 26 healthy control participants completed a short-term memory (STM) task, a WM task, and a reading comprehension task under two distraction conditions. As in Experiment 1, we found no differences on behavioral measures, but observed significant differences on spontaneous eye-blinking frequency between those with and without mTBI. Group differences in distraction effects were also observed and performance on the WM task predicted reading comprehension performance. Conclusions: The lack of differences on behavioral measures between groups, but lower frequencies of spontaneous eye blinking in the mTBI group suggests that while these individuals successfully completed the reading comprehension task, they may require more cognitive resources to do so.
KW - executive function
KW - eye movements
KW - memory
KW - reading
KW - traumatic brain injury
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2022.106197
DO - 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2022.106197
M3 - Article
C2 - 35151226
AN - SCOPUS:85124199690
SN - 0021-9924
VL - 96
JO - Journal of Communication Disorders
JF - Journal of Communication Disorders
M1 - 106197
ER -