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Working memory and inferences: evidence from eye fixations during reading.
1Departamento de Psicología Cognitiva, University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain. mgcalvo@ull.es
Memory (Hove, England)
|October 12, 2001
Summary
Working memory capacity influences reading comprehension. Higher working memory aids in making inferences about predictable events during reading, particularly in later stages of text processing.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Linguistics
Background:
- Individual differences in working memory capacity impact cognitive tasks.
- Reading comprehension involves complex processes, including inference generation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between working memory capacity and inferential processing during reading.
- To determine if working memory affects early lexical access or later text integration.
Main Methods:
- Monitoring eye fixations during reading.
- Using the reading span task to assess working memory capacity.
- Presenting context sentences that either predicted or did not predict subsequent events.
Main Results:
- Higher working memory capacity correlated with shorter gaze durations.
- Working memory capacity interacted with context predictability and target word type.
- Predicting context facilitated inference reanalysis for high-span readers, indicated by reduced reading time and regressions.
Conclusions:
- Working memory capacity facilitates elaborative inferences during reading.
- This facilitation occurs during late text-integration processes, not early lexical access.