fMRI evidence for strategic decision-making during resolution of pronoun reference

► Lexical semantic resources in temporal cortex are recruited to determine the gender of a referent. ► Inferior frontal cortex is recruited to determine the grammatical position of a potential referent. ► Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex supports a probabilistic mechanism to evaluate likelihood of a gender. ► Orbitofrontal cortex supports a risk mechanism that is activated when a referent has unknown gender. ► Inferior parietal cortex integrates probability and risk to calculated the expected utility of a referent.