Neural correlates of second language reading comprehension in the presence of congruous and incongruous illustrations

To determine the neural underpinning of text-illustration effects, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed using 45 short passages in English with text only and with text-congruous and text-incongruous illustrations. Compared to text alone, text accompanied by congruous illustrations elicited increased activation in brain areas implicated in attention, motivation, and reward, suggesting that text-congruous illustrations can improve reader's attention and motivation to read text, which in turn may promote reading comprehension. Furthermore, in a comparison of effects between text-congruous and text-incongruous illustrations, the results indicated that illustrations that are inconsistent with the content of the text may reduce readers' attention to and motivation for reading text and thus interfere with reading comprehension.