Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and Cognition · 1992 · 345 citations · 0 references
Social SciencesPsychologyCognitive PsychologyIndividual DifferencesReading ComprehensionMonitoring ComprehensionReaction TimeReadingReading ProcessesWord RecognitionWorking MemoryReading Span
A relationship has consistently been found between measures of working memory and reading comprehension. Four hypotheses for this relationship were tested in three experiments. The study used a moving‑window procedure for operation‑word and reading‑span tasks in Experiments 1–2, and compared experimenter‑paced versus subject‑paced word‑span tasks in Experiment 3 to examine their relation to comprehension. High‑ and low‑span subjects did not differ in time allocation or in the correlation between span and comprehension after controlling for viewing time; the experimenter‑paced word‑span correlated with comprehension while the subject‑paced span did not, supporting a general capacity explanation for the working‑memory–comprehension relationship.
A relationship has consistently been found between measures of working memory and reading comprehension. Four hypotheses for this relationship were tested in 3 experiments. In the first 2 experiments, a moving window procedure was used to present the operation-word and reading span tasks. High- and low-span subjects did not differentially trade off time on the elements of the tasks and the to-be-remembered word. Furthermore, the correlation between span and comprehension was undiminished when the viewing times were partialed out. Experiment 3 compared a traditional experimenter-paced simple word-span and a subject-paced span in their relationship with comprehension. The experimenter-paced word-span correlated with comprehension but the subject-paced span did not. The results of all 3 experiments support a general capacity explanation for the relationship between working memory and comprehension.