This experimental study investigated how text difficulty and different working memory capacity(WMC)affected Chinese EFL learners’reading comprehension and their tendency to engage in task-unrelated thoughts,that is,m...This experimental study investigated how text difficulty and different working memory capacity(WMC)affected Chinese EFL learners’reading comprehension and their tendency to engage in task-unrelated thoughts,that is,mind wandering(MW),in the course of reading.Sixty first-year university non-English majors participated in the study.A two-factor mixed experimental design of 2(text difficulty:difficult and simple)×2(WMC:high/large and low/small)was employed.Results revealed that 1)the main and interaction effects of WMC and text difficulty on voluntary MW were significant,whereas those on involuntary MW were not;2)while reading the easy texts,the involuntary MW of high-WMC individuals was less frequent than that of low-WMC ones,whereas while reading the difficult ones,the direct relationship between WMC and involuntary MW was not found;and that 3)high-WMC individuals had a lower overall rate of MW and better reading performance than low-WMC individuals did,but with increasing text difficulty,their rates of overall MW and voluntary MW were getting higher and higher,and the reading performance was getting lower and lower.These results lend support to WM theory and have pedagogical implications for the instruction of L2 reading.展开更多
The default mode network(DMN) is associated with the occurrence of mind-wandering or task-unrelated thought. In contrast, the frontal-parietal network(FPN) and visual network(VS) are involved in tasks with external st...The default mode network(DMN) is associated with the occurrence of mind-wandering or task-unrelated thought. In contrast, the frontal-parietal network(FPN) and visual network(VS) are involved in tasks with external stimuli. However, it is not clear how these functional network interactions support these two different processes– mind-wandering and on-task – especially with regard to individual variation in the mind-wandering experience. In this study, we investigated the functional connectivity and modular structure among the DMN, FPN, and VS. Our results showed that, compared to the on-task period, mindwandering was associated with increased DMN activity and increased DMN-VS connectivity. Moreover, mindwandering was accompanied by a large number of transitional nodes, which expressed a diversity of brain regions. Intriguingly, the functional connectivity of the FPN and VS was strongly correlated with individual behavioral performance. Our findings highlight the individual variation of mind-wandering, which implies the importance of other complementary large-scale brain networks.展开更多
文摘This experimental study investigated how text difficulty and different working memory capacity(WMC)affected Chinese EFL learners’reading comprehension and their tendency to engage in task-unrelated thoughts,that is,mind wandering(MW),in the course of reading.Sixty first-year university non-English majors participated in the study.A two-factor mixed experimental design of 2(text difficulty:difficult and simple)×2(WMC:high/large and low/small)was employed.Results revealed that 1)the main and interaction effects of WMC and text difficulty on voluntary MW were significant,whereas those on involuntary MW were not;2)while reading the easy texts,the involuntary MW of high-WMC individuals was less frequent than that of low-WMC ones,whereas while reading the difficult ones,the direct relationship between WMC and involuntary MW was not found;and that 3)high-WMC individuals had a lower overall rate of MW and better reading performance than low-WMC individuals did,but with increasing text difficulty,their rates of overall MW and voluntary MW were getting higher and higher,and the reading performance was getting lower and lower.These results lend support to WM theory and have pedagogical implications for the instruction of L2 reading.
基金supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31571111)the Chongqing Research Program of Basic Research and Frontier Technology (cstc2017jcyjAX0110)the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (SWU1609109)
文摘The default mode network(DMN) is associated with the occurrence of mind-wandering or task-unrelated thought. In contrast, the frontal-parietal network(FPN) and visual network(VS) are involved in tasks with external stimuli. However, it is not clear how these functional network interactions support these two different processes– mind-wandering and on-task – especially with regard to individual variation in the mind-wandering experience. In this study, we investigated the functional connectivity and modular structure among the DMN, FPN, and VS. Our results showed that, compared to the on-task period, mindwandering was associated with increased DMN activity and increased DMN-VS connectivity. Moreover, mindwandering was accompanied by a large number of transitional nodes, which expressed a diversity of brain regions. Intriguingly, the functional connectivity of the FPN and VS was strongly correlated with individual behavioral performance. Our findings highlight the individual variation of mind-wandering, which implies the importance of other complementary large-scale brain networks.