Martín-Aragoneses, María TeresaMejuto, GemaRio, David delFernandes, Sara MargaridaRodrigues, Pedro E.S.López Higes, Ramón2025-02-062025-02-062023-03-01Martín-Aragoneses, María Teresa, Mejuto, Gema, Rio, David del, Fernandes, Sara Margarida, Rodrigues, Pedro E.S. y López-Higes, Ramón . (2023) Task Demands and Sentence Reading Comprehension among Healthy Older Adults: The Complementary Roles of Cognitive Reserve and Working Memory. Brain Sciences Vol. 13 (3), 4282076-3425https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13030428https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/25838The registered version of this article, first published in Brain Sciences Vol. 13 (3), 428, is available online at the publisher's website: MDPI, https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13030428La versión registrada de este artículo, publicado por primera vez en Brain Sciences Vol. 13 (3), 428, está disponible en línea en el sitio web del editor: MDPI, https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13030428Ageing entails different functional brain changes. Education, reading experience, and leisure activities, among others, might contribute to the maintenance of cognitive performance among older adults and are conceptualised as proxies for cognitive reserve. However, ageing also conveys a depletion of working memory capacity, which adversely impacts language comprehension. This study investigated how cognitive reserve proxies and working memory jointly predict the performance of healthy older adults in a sentence reading comprehension task, and how their predictive value changes depending on sentence structure and task demands. Cognitively healthy older adults (n = 120) completed a sentence–picture verification task under two conditions: concurrent viewing of the sentence and picture or their sequential presentation, thereby imposing greater demands on working memory. They also completed a questionnaire on cognitive reserve proxies as well as a verbal working memory test. The sentence structure was manipulated by altering the canonical word order and modifying the amount of propositional information. While the cognitive reserve was the main predictor in the concurrent condition, the predictive role of working memory increased under the sequential presentation, particularly for complex sentences. These findings highlight the complementary roles played by cognitive reserve and working memory in the reading comprehension of older adults.eninfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess58 Pedagogíaartículocognitive reserveolder adultssentence comprehensionsentence–picture verificationtask demandsworking memory