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
This article explored the influence of working memory capacity on the frequency of self-repairs.The narrative task and listening span task were used.Twenty post-graduate students participated in this study.Overall,the...This article explored the influence of working memory capacity on the frequency of self-repairs.The narrative task and listening span task were used.Twenty post-graduate students participated in this study.Overall,the results of this study illustrated that the working memory is a factor of self-repairs.Speakers who have higher working memory capacity produce lesser self-repairs.This finding provides teachers with a new insight into second language teaching;that is,teachers can improve the amount of lexical knowledge when teaching students who have lower working memory in order to help them produce more accurate language during the process of L2 speech production.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.
文摘This article explored the influence of working memory capacity on the frequency of self-repairs.The narrative task and listening span task were used.Twenty post-graduate students participated in this study.Overall,the results of this study illustrated that the working memory is a factor of self-repairs.Speakers who have higher working memory capacity produce lesser self-repairs.This finding provides teachers with a new insight into second language teaching;that is,teachers can improve the amount of lexical knowledge when teaching students who have lower working memory in order to help them produce more accurate language during the process of L2 speech production.
