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Related Experiment Videos

Working memory capacity and time course of predictive inferences.

A Estevez1, M G Calvo

  • 1Departamento de Psicología Cognitiva, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain. Aestevez@ull.es

Memory (Hove, England)
|May 23, 2000
PubMed
Summary

High working memory capacity speeds up predictive inferences during reading, but they are not automatic. Lower working memory capacity readers take longer to make these inferences.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Reading comprehension involves making inferences to fill gaps in text.
  • Predictive inferences are crucial for understanding the ongoing narrative.
  • Individual differences in working memory capacity may influence the speed and efficiency of inference generation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the time course of predictive inference activation during reading.
  • To examine the role of working memory capacity in the temporal dynamics of inference generation.
  • To determine if predictive inferences become automatic based on working memory capacity.

Main Methods:

  • A naming task was used to assess the activation of inference concepts.
  • Participants read context sentences followed by target words representing predicted or inconsistent events.
  • The interval between context and target varied (50-1050 msec), and working memory capacity was measured using the reading span task.

Main Results:

  • Inferences were not activated within 50 msec, irrespective of reading span.
  • High-span participants showed evidence of inference generation within 550 msec.
  • Both high- and low-span participants generated inferences by 1050 msec, with high-span participants showing faster activation.

Conclusions:

  • Higher working memory capacity accelerates the time course of predictive inference generation.
  • Predictive inferences do not appear to become fully automatic, even in high-span individuals.
  • Difficulties in generating predictive inferences in low-span readers are not attributable to word knowledge or lexical access speed.

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