Individual differences in inference generation during expository text comprehension: working memory and prior knowledge

BARREYRO, J. P.; INJOQUE RICLE, I.; FORMOSO, J.; ALVAREZ DREXLER, A.; BURIN, D. I.

Rio de Janeiro

Congreso; The Third ANPOLL International Psycholinguistics Congress: Domain Specificity in Language Acquisition and Processing; 2015

ANPOLL

Expository texts are an important tool for learning. Its purpose consists of informing about new concepts, generic or abstract realities, and providing important technical information (Vidal-Abarca et al., 2002). Reinstatement inferences are an important kind of inferences generated while reading an expository text, specifically when the reader reactivates information presented previously in the text, in order to maintain sufficient causal justification for the statement that it´s reading (van den Broek, 1994; van den Broek, Virtue, Everson, Tzeng, & Sung, 2002). Working memory refers to the mechanisms and processes involved in the control, regulation and active execution of complex cognitive activities, and the active maintenance of relevant information (Shah & Miyake, 1999). Cognitive processes use readers? prior knowledge to interpret linguistic stimuli while reading. Available prior knowledge about the language and about the world facilitates not only comprehension of the explicit information in the text, but also the generation of inferences about implicit information (McNamara & Kintsch, 1996). The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the generation of reinstatement inferences and working memory, and the generation of reinstatement inferences and prior knowledge, both in expository texts. Method. Sample. 83 undergraduate students of both genders (20.48 % male) volunteered to participate in the study. Their mean age was 21.67 (SD = 5.62). Materials and procedure. Two texts -one about climate change and other about mars exploration- were presented. Before reading the texts a questionnaire about climate change and astronomy knowledge were completed by the participants. After reading each text a questionnaire about reinstatement inferences was presented. These questions were based on the sentences that required, from the reader, reinstatement explanations of concepts. Results. The correlation analysis showed that working memory task and prior knowledge questionnaires correlate with reinstatement inferences questionnaires (p < .05). The path analysis indicates that working memory has an important effect on prior knowledge (β = .65, p < .001), and prior knowledge is important to reinstatement inference making (β = .61, p < .001). Also working memory has an indirect effect on reinstatement inferences (β = .40). Discussion. These results could indicate that the capacity to reactivate information previously presented in the text, in order to maintain sufficient causal justification for the statement that he or she is reading, could be supported by working memory resources and by the reader?s previous knowledge.