Prediction is the preactivation of information before it is directly encountered, and is an important theoretical framework for understanding how the brain processes information.  It has been relatively well established that monolinguals actively make use of multiple sources of information to predict upcoming linguistic information before they encounter it.  However, there are still several aspects of prediction that are not well understood.  One key question focuses on whether prediction is necessary to understand language. While some current frameworks argue that this is the case, others argue that while prediction is useful, it is by no means a requirement.  A key distinction between these views stems from the proposed contribution of executive resources during prediction, with only the latter inferring their involvement.

Evidence that prediction requires investment of executive resources comes from reduced prediction in groups of speakers with fewer available executive resources (e.g., L2, children, and older adults).  Alternatively, prediction in these groups may differ as a result of their linguistic experience.  In this talk I will discuss how prediction is affected by executive resource availability when linguistic experience is matched, by investigating older adults with normal hearing (PwNH) vs older adults with hearing loss (PwHL), when it is not matched, by investigating L1 vs L2 speakers, and within participants, through a memory load manipulation.