工作记忆广度对语篇理解中重读效应的影响

The Influence of Working Memory Span on the Accentuation Effects in Discourse Comprehension

本文探索了工作记忆容量对语篇理解中重读效应的影响。采用阅读广度测验对工作记忆容量进行测量,筛选出高、低广度两组被试。并采用听觉动窗实验范式,比较两组被试在语篇理解中即时加工时间的差异。研究结果表明,重读效应受到工作记忆广度的显著影响。对于低工作记忆广度被试,一致性重读促进语篇理解,不一致性重读阻碍语篇理解;但对于高工作记忆广度被试,一致性重读的促进效应和不一致性重读的阻碍效应都不显著。另外,只有在不一致性重读条件下,低广度者语篇理解的即时加工时间显著多于高广度者,而在一致性重读和无重读条件下则没有显著差异。最后用工作记忆的控制性注意理论对研究结果进行了讨论。

Working memory capacity is of central importance for many complex cognitive tasks such as language comprehension. Previous research has focused on how working memory capacity affects syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic processing. It is not clear whether working memory capacity also affects prosody. At the prosodic level, the correspondences between accentuation and information structure have been proven to exert an influence on discourse comprehension. This study explored the influence of working memory capacity on accentuation effects in discourse comprehension from an individual difference approach. High （n=27） and low （n=23） working memory span participants were selected by Reading Span Test from 106 college students. Sentence-by-Sentence Auditory Moving Window Paradigm was employed to measure the effects of accentuation on discourse comprehension, with 24 discourses （each containing 5 sentences） as materials. The on-line processing time of discourse comprehension, measured by difference time, was compared among 3 conditions： consistent accentuation condition, inconsistent accentuation condition and controlled condition. Low working memory span participants showed speeded on-ling processing in the consistent condition, and slowed processing in the inconsistent condition. High span participants, on the other hand, showed neither effect. High and low span participants did not differ significantly in either the consistent or neutral accentuation conditions. In the inconsistent accentuation condition, however, low span participants spent significantly more time on the on-line processing of spoken discourse than high span participants. These results suggest that： （1） Accentuation effects in discourse comprehension are influenced by working memory capacity, and the influence can be explained by the controlled attention view of working memory. （2） Practical implications of this study would be to call attention to the appropriate employment of prosody such as accentuation, especially during the verbal communication with people who have lower working memory capacity.