Word-Decoding Skill Interacts With Working Memory Capacity to Influence Inference Generation During Reading

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine predictions derived from a proposal about the relation between word-decoding skill and working memory capacity, called verbal efficiency theory. The theory states that poor word representations and slow decoding processes consume resources in working memory that would otherwise be used to execute high-level comprehension processes, such as the generation of inferences. Previous research has yielded inconsistent findings about the importance of word decoding in adult readers, and the hypothesis has never been tested experimentally. Verbal efficiency theory was tested in this experiment by manipulating the difficulty of grapheme–phoneme conversion and assessing the extent to which readers made bridging inferences. Participants read two-sentence passages and then responded to lexical decision targets. Some of the passages required a bridging inference to integrate the first and second sentences. Decoding difficulty was manipulated such that the second sentence in some passages was written using pseudohomophones. Participants also received tasks to assess their working memory capacity and decoding ability. Inference priming was found in both the Standard American English and pseudohomophone contexts but was stronger in the former than in the latter. The advantage in priming for the Standard English relative to the pseudohomophone condition was predicted by an interaction between decoding skill and working memory capacity. Poor decoders who scored high on the span tests were less impaired by the pseudohomophone manipulation than were poor decoders who scored low on the tests. The results suggest that working memory capacity compensates for poor decoding skills even among proficient adult readers.

Beyond the Simple View of Reading: The Role of Executive Functions in Emergent Bilinguals’ and English Monolinguals’ Reading Comprehension

“…Although evidence shows that EBs tend to perform comparably to their EM peers or to national norms in word-reading skills (Mancilla-Martinez & Lesaux, 2010;Nakamoto, Lindsey, & Manis, 2007), by grade 3 (Lesaux, Kieffer, Faller, & Kelley, 2010;Mancilla-Martinez & Lesaux, 2011), D still appears to require more effort for EBs than for EMs-possibly due to their weaker LC skillsbut as evinced by these effects, also through the role of working memory. This pattern agrees with evidence showing that working memory skills support decoding processes for individuals with decoding weaknesses (Hamilton, Freed, & Long, 2016).…”

A comparison of eye movement measures across reading efficiency quartile groups in elementary, middle, and high school students in the U.S.

“…At the same time, developing and lessefficient readers who may be less familiar with many of the words they encounter are more likely to need multiple fixations to identify a word (e.g., while using sub-lexical analysis to construct a phonological representation, or mentally "sound out" the word). The cognitive effort associated with identifying unfamiliar words diverts attention that might otherwise be available for cognitive priming (Hamilton, Freed, & Long, 2016) and for the preprocessing of information in the parafoveal region (Ashby et al, 2012;Blythe, 2014;Rayner, 1986;Rayner, et al, 2010), thereby postponing the first steps in identifying subsequent words and further slowing the reading process. At a more global level, this less efficient reading behavior is more taxing on attention, comprehension, and memory; perhaps to the point that information is lost before the end of a sentence has been reached and connected meaning has been constructed (e.g., LaBerge & Samuels, 1974;Logan, 1997;National Reading Panel, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000;Perfetti, 2007;Priya & Wagner, 2009).…”

Effects of phonological loop on inferential processing during Chinese text reading: Evidence from a dual‐task paradigm

“…The current study explored the role of phonological loop in online inference processes during Chinese text reading by interrupting the functions of two devices with a concurrent secondary task. Previous research has investigated the role of WM in inference processes only with offline tasks to assess WM capacity (e.g., Calvo, 2001, 2004; Gillioz et al, 2012; Hamilton et al, 2016) or the phonological loop capacity (e.g., Chrysochoou et al, 2011; Meng et al, 2017). Moreover, this study somehow elucidates that whether phonological encoding plays a role in Chinese reading might depend somewhat on the text type.…”

“…WM capacity generally refers to the amount of information that can be processed and stored during a period of time (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980), and it has been found to be an important indicator for inference generation (Bohn‐Gettler & Kendeou, 2014; Hamilton, Freed, & Long, 2016). Numerous studies have explored the role of WM capacity in inferential processes with behavioral methods (e.g., Calvo, 2001, 2004; Linderholm & van den Broek, 2002; Rai, Loschky, Harris, Peck, & Cook, 2011) or neuroscience techniques (e.g., Pérez, Cain, Castellano, & Bajo, 2015; St. George, Mannes, & Hoffman, 1997; Virtue, Parrish, & Beeman, 2008).…”

“…Numerous studies have explored the role of WM capacity in inferential processes with behavioral methods (e.g., Calvo, 2001, 2004; Linderholm & van den Broek, 2002; Rai, Loschky, Harris, Peck, & Cook, 2011) or neuroscience techniques (e.g., Pérez, Cain, Castellano, & Bajo, 2015; St. George, Mannes, & Hoffman, 1997; Virtue, Parrish, & Beeman, 2008). In these studies, readers' WM capacity was assessed with Daneman and Carpenter's (1980) reading span task (e.g., Estevez & Calvo, 2000; Gillioz, Gygax, & Tapiero, 2012) or Unsworth, Heitz, Schrock, and Engle's (2005) operation span task (e.g., Hamilton et al, 2016; Rai et al, 2011), in which participants read a series of sentences and recalled the final word of each sentence or remembered lists of letters in a concurrent arithmetic problem‐solving task. WM capacity assessed by these tasks corresponds to the central executive component in the WM model (Estevez & Calvo, 2000; Rai et al, 2011).…”