Understanding How Language-Specific and Domain-General Resources Support Comprehension

ABSTRACT A large body of work has demonstrated that reader resources influence inference processes and comprehension, but few models of comprehension have accounted for such resources. The Direct and Mediational Inference model of comprehension (DIME) assumes that general inference processes mediate the effects of reader resources on general comprehension proficiency. The current study proposes an extension of DIME, the Inferential Mediation Model (IMM), to account for comprehension as it occurs while reading a particular text. College students were administered a battery of reader resource measures. In addition, they completed a think-aloud tool that measured comprehension and readers’ inference processes while reading specific texts. A path analysis revealed that inference processes partially mediate the relationships between reader resources and comprehension performance. These results support the DIME and IMM, and suggest that inference processes that support mental model construction mediate the impact of reader resources on comprehension.

[1]  K. Stanovich,et al.  Tracking the Unique Effects of Print Exposure in Children: Associations with Vocabulary, General Knowledge, and Spelling. , 1991 .

[2]  M. Just,et al.  Working memory constraints on the processing of syntactic ambiguity , 1992, Cognitive Psychology.

[3]  M. Binns,et al.  Response Time Consistency Is an Indicator of Executive Control Rather than Global Cognitive Ability , 2017, Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.

[4]  K. Stanovich,et al.  Exposure to print and orthographic processing. , 1989 .

[5]  P. Broek.  Comprehension and memory of narrative texts: Inferences and coherence. , 1994 .

[6]  R. Engle.  Working Memory Capacity as Executive Attention , 2002 .

[7]  Morten H. Christiansen,et al.  Reassessing working memory: comment on Just and Carpenter (1992) and Waters and Caplan (1996). , 2002, Psychological review.

[8]  Douglas J. Hacker.  Definitions and Empirical Foundations , 1998 .

[9]  T. Trabasso,et al.  Understanding text: Achieving explanatory coherence through on‐line inferences and mental operations in working memory , 1993 .

[10]  Richard P. Heitz,et al.  An automated version of the operation span task , 2005, Behavior research methods.

[11]  Bernhard Hommel,et al.  Working memory and the attentional blink: Blink size is predicted by individual differences in operation span , 2007, Psychonomic bulletin & review.

[12]  Danielle S. McNAMARA and Joseph P. Magliano,et al.  Self-Explanation and Metacognition: The Dynamics of Reading , 2009 .

[13]  M. G. Calvo,et al.  Working memory and inferences: Evidence from eye fixations during reading , 2001, Memory.

[14]  Laurie E. Cutting,et al.  Prediction of Reading Comprehension: Relative Contributions of Word Recognition, Language Proficiency, and Other Cognitive Skills Can Depend on How Comprehension Is Measured , 2006 .

[15]  James C. Hayton,et al.  Factor Retention Decisions in Exploratory Factor Analysis: a Tutorial on Parallel Analysis , 2004 .

[16]  Paulina A. Kulesz,et al.  Validation of the direct and inferential mediation (DIME) model of reading comprehension in grades 7 through 12 , 2016 .

[17]  W. Kintsch.  The role of knowledge in discourse comprehension: a construction-integration model. , 1988, Psychological review.

[18]  R. Azevedo,et al.  Testing and refining the direct and inferential mediation model of reading comprehension , 2007 .

[19]  M. Barnes,et al.  Comprehension skill, inference-making ability, and their relation to knowledge , 2001, Memory & cognition.

[20]  Gene Ouellette,et al.  What's Meaning Got to Do With It: The Role of Vocabulary in Word Reading and Reading Comprehension , 2006 .

[21]  E. Fox,et al.  Metacognition and Self-Regulation in James, Piaget, and Vygotsky , 2008 .

[22]  John Sabatini,et al.  Reaching an understanding : innovations in how we view reading assessment , 2012 .

[23]  Rebecca Fincher-Kiefer,et al.  Perceptual components of situation models , 2001, Memory & cognition.

[24]  Murray Singer,et al.  Individual differences in bridging inference processes , 1992, Memory & cognition.

[25]  Brenton Muñoz,et al.  Typing versus thinking aloud when reading: Implications for computer-based assessment and training tools , 2006, Behavior research methods.

[26]  David Yun Dai,et al.  The role of need for cognition and reader beliefs in text comprehension and interest development , 2007 .

[27]  Laura K. Allen,et al.  Cohesive Features of Deep Text Comprehension Processes , 2016, CogSci.

[28]  R. Ryder,et al.  The Effects of Vocabulary Instruction on Readers' Ability to Make Causal Connections. , 1993 .

[29]  Lynn Hasher,et al.  Age-related differences in cognition: the role of distraction control. , 2008, Neuropsychology.

[30]  Laura K. Allen,et al.  Are you reading my mind?: modeling students' reading comprehension skills with natural language processing techniques , 2015, LAK.

[31]  D. McNamara.  SERT: Self-Explanation Reading Training , 2004 .

[32]  John T. Guthrie,et al.  Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction: An Integrated Curriculum To Develop Motivations and Strategies for Reading. Reading Research Report No. 10. , 1994 .

[33]  Danielle S. McNamara,et al.  Reversing the Reverse Cohesion Effect: Good Texts Can Be Better for Strategic, High-Knowledge Readers , 2007 .

[34]  J. Hair.  Multivariate data analysis , 1972 .

[35]  P. Broek,et al.  The effects of reading purpose and working memory capacity on the processing of expository text. , 2002 .

[36]  Michael J Kane,et al.  Why does working memory capacity predict variation in reading comprehension? On the influence of mind wandering and executive attention. , 2012, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[37]  Rolf A. Zwaan,et al.  Situation models in language comprehension and memory. , 1998, Psychological bulletin.

[38]  Walter Kintsch,et al.  Comprehension: A Paradigm for Cognition , 1998 .

[39]  Danielle S. McNamara,et al.  Improving Adolescent Students' Reading Comprehension with Istart , 2006 .

[40]  T. Trabasso,et al.  Constructing inferences during narrative text comprehension. , 1994, Psychological review.

[41]  Maribeth Cassidy Schmitt,et al.  A Questionnaire to Measure Children's Awareness of Strategic Reading Processes. , 1990 .

[42]  A. Graesser,et al.  The Generation of Knowledge - Based Inferences During Narrative Comprehension , 1985 .

[43]  P. Carpenter,et al.  Individual differences in working memory and reading , 1980 .

[44]  Charles A. Perfetti,et al.  Effects of Long-Term Vocabulary Instruction on Lexical Access and Reading Comprehension. , 1982 .

[45]  John T. Guthrie,et al.  Relationships of Three Components of Reading Fluency to Reading Comprehension. , 2008 .

[46]  Mary Jane White,et al.  Making the right connections: Differential effects of reading intervention for subgroups of comprehenders , 2012 .

[47]  Arthur C. Graesser,et al.  QUEST: A cognitive model of question answering , 1990 .

[48]  Edward Gibson,et al.  The nature of working memory capacity in sentence comprehension : Evidence against domain-specific working memory resources , 2006 .

[49]  Daniel J. Acheson,et al.  Verbal working memory and language production: Common approaches to the serial ordering of verbal information. , 2009, Psychological bulletin.

[50]  Morten H. Christiansen,et al.  Reassessing Working Memory: Comment on Just and Carpenter (1992) and Waters and Caplan (1996) , 2002 .

[51]  M. Just,et al.  From the SelectedWorks of Marcel Adam Just 1992 A capacity theory of comprehension : Individual differences in working memory , 2017 .

[52]  Joseph P. Magliano,et al.  Conscious understanding during comprehension , 1996 .

[53]  M. Calvo.  Relative contribution of vocabulary knowledge and working memory span to elaborative inferences in reading , 2005 .

[54]  Joseph P. Magliano,et al.  Measuring Discourse-Level Processes With Verbal Protocols and Latent Semantic Analysis , 2006 .

[55]  Jennifer Wiley,et al.  Metacognitive Monitoring During and After Reading , 2009 .

[56]  David N. Rapp,et al.  Higher-Order Comprehension Processes in Struggling Readers: A Perspective for Research and Intervention , 2007 .

[57]  Patricia B. Elmore,et al.  The Relationship of Reading Comprehension to Critical Thinking Skills, Cognitive Ability, and Vocabulary for a Sample of Underachieving College Freshmen , 1992 .

[58]  J. Nicholls,et al.  The development of achievement motivation , 1984 .

[59]  P. Broek,et al.  The Landscape model of reading: Inferences and the online construction of memory representation. , 1999 .

[60]  K. Stanovich,et al.  Early reading acquisition and its relation to reading experience and ability 10 years later. , 1997, Developmental psychology.

[61]  J. Cacioppo,et al.  DISPOSITIONAL DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE MOTIVATION : THE LIFE AND TIMES OF INDIVIDUALS VARYING IN NEED FOR COGNITION , 1996 .

[62]  David J. Therriault,et al.  A latent variable analysis of working memory capacity, short-term memory capacity, processing speed, and general fluid intelligence , 2002 .

[63]  D. Long,et al.  Comprehension skill and global coherence: a paradoxical picture of poor comprehenders' abilities. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[64]  H. Kaiser.  An index of factorial simplicity , 1974 .

[65]  Joseph P. Magliano,et al.  A connectionist model of narrative comprehension , 1999 .

[66]  John Dunlosky,et al.  Content-embedded tasks beat complex span for predicting comprehension , 2011, Behavior research methods.

[67]  R. Ratcliff,et al.  Inferences about predictable events. , 1986, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[68]  Danielle S. McNamara,et al.  Comprehension skill, inference making, and the role of knowledge , 2012 .

[69]  J. Cromley,et al.  Reading Comprehension of Scientific Text: A Domain-Specific Test of the Direct and Inferential Mediation Model of Reading Comprehension. , 2010 .

[70]  Joseph P. Magliano,et al.  Chapter 9 Toward a Comprehensive Model of Comprehension , 2009 .

[71]  P. Donahue,et al.  The Nation's Report Card[TM]: 12th-Grade Reading and Mathematics, 2005. NCES 2007-468. , 2007 .

[72]  J. Cacioppo,et al.  The need for cognition. , 1982 .

[73]  Rebecca Fincher-Kiefer,et al.  The Role of Visuospatial Resources in Generating Predictive and Bridging Inferences , 2004 .

[74]  William E. Nagy,et al.  Metalinguistic awareness and the vocabulary-comprehension connection. , 2007 .

[75]  Kouider Mokhtari,et al.  Assessing students' Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies , 2002 .

[76]  Joseph P. Magliano,et al.  Assessing the Structure of Verbal Protocols , 2008 .

[77]  Danielle S. McNamara,et al.  Learning from texts: Effects of prior knowledge and text coherence , 1996 .

[78]  Margaret G. McKeown,et al.  Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction , 2002 .

[79]  Joseph P Magliano,et al.  Assessing the format of the presentation of text in developing a Reading Strategy Assessment Tool (R-SAT) , 2007, Behavior research methods.

[80]  Joseph P. Magliano,et al.  The Role of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Processes in Between-Text Integration , 2005 .

[81]  Todd B. Parrish,et al.  Inferences during Story Comprehension: Cortical Recruitment Affected by Predictability of Events and Working Memory Capacity , 2008, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[82]  Tracy Linderholm,et al.  Predictive Inference Generation as a Function of Working Memory Capacity and Causal Text Constraints , 2002 .

[83]  O. Parsons,et al.  A methodological study of the Shipley Institute of Living Scale in alcoholics and non-alcoholics: reliability, discriminating items and alternate forms. , 1995, Applied neuropsychology.

[84]  P. Broek,et al.  The effects of prior knowledge and text structure on comprehension processes during reading of scientific texts , 2007, Memory & cognition.

[85]  Catherine McBride-Chang,et al.  Print exposure as a predictor of word reading and reading comprehension in disabled and nondisabled readers , 1993 .

[86]  Robert F. Lorch,et al.  The effects of readers’ goals on inference generation and memory for texts , 2001, Memory & cognition.

[87]  Joseph P. Magliano,et al.  Assessing Reading Skill With a Think-Aloud Procedure and Latent Semantic Analysis , 2003 .

[88]  Morton Ann Gernsbacher,et al.  Language Comprehension As Structure Building , 1990 .

[89]  R. Engle,et al.  Is working memory capacity task dependent , 1989 .

[90]  Klaus Oberauer,et al.  The multiple faces of working memory: Storage, processing, supervision, and coordination , 2003 .

[91]  Brenda Hannon,et al.  Using working memory theory to investigate the construct validity of multiple-choice reading comprehension tests such as the SAT. , 2001, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[92]  Joseph P. Magliano,et al.  Assessing comprehension during reading with the Reading Strategy Assessment Tool (RSAT) , 2011, Metacognition and learning.

[93]  Lester C. Loschky,et al.  The relative roles of visuospatial and linguistic working memory systems in generating inferences during visual narrative comprehension , 2015, Memory & Cognition.

[94]  E. J. O'Brien,et al.  Inferences during reading , 2015 .

[95]  Rolf A. Zwaan,et al.  The Construction of Situation Models in Narrative Comprehension: An Event-Indexing Model , 1995 .

[96]  D Budd,et al.  Individual differences in working memory strategies for reading expository text , 1995, Memory & cognition.

[97]  Charles A. Perfetti,et al.  Word Knowledge in a Theory of Reading Comprehension , 2014 .

[98]  Debra L. Long,et al.  Individual differences in readers' sentence- and text-level representations , 1997 .

[99]  B. Wasik,et al.  The Development of Strategic Readers , 2016 .

[100]  Jerome L. Myers,et al.  Accessing the discourse representation during reading , 1998 .

[101]  Daniel J. Acheson,et al.  New and updated tests of print exposure and reading abilities in college students , 2008, Behavior research methods.

[102]  Keith E. Stanovich,et al.  Where does knowledge come from? Specific associations between print exposure and information acquisition. , 1993 .

[103]  T. Shanahan,et al.  Phonemic Awareness Instruction Helps Children Learn to Read: Evidence From the National Reading Panel's Meta-Analysis , 2001 .

[104]  Paul Whitney,et al.  Working‐memory capacity and the use of elaborative inferences in text comprehension , 1991 .

[105]  Mary Jane White,et al.  When a reader meets a text: The role of standards of coherence in reading comprehension. , 2011 .

[106]  C. Perfetti,et al.  Relationship Between Single Word Decoding and Reading Comprehension Skill , 1975 .

[107]  Roger Ratcliff,et al.  Inference during reading. , 1992 .