📚 New paper out in eLife

Older adults read smarter, not harder 🧠📖✨

• What we did: Two big self‑paced reading studies (N=175, ages 18–85) with and without a secondary n‑back task, plus GPT‑2 surprisal to quantify how predictable each word was.

• Key finding: Predictable words speed reading—especially for older adults—but multitasking (1‑back/2‑back) soaks up executive resources and blunts that prediction boost.

• Why it matters: The brain leans on prediction to stay efficient with age, yet that edge depends on available control resources—when attention is taxed, prediction pays off less. 🚦

• Nerdy bit: Effects emerge in marginal effects, Johnson–Neyman plots, and cumulative reading‑time simulations that show surprisal costs stacking across a sentence. 📈 ​

  Manuscript is still in revision but find the first official version here: doi.org/10.7554/eLife.108176.1