Individual differences in memory storage and retrieval during reading comprehensi

描述（由申请人提供）：阅读和语言理解要求能够识别经常不相邻的语言单位之间的关系。这意味着理解者必须能够储存部分理解的材料（例如，动词出现得较晚的句子的主语，即：上周二在大减价时买了一件蓝条纹外套，衣领上有闪亮纽扣的男孩在公交车站唱歌。）对于理解困难，一个常见的解释是，个体在工作记忆（WM）的容量上存在差异，他们可以用来维持这些信息。然而，最近在记忆领域使用速度-准确性权衡（SAT）方法的研究表明，在工作记忆中主动保持的信息量非常小——可能只有一个项目。这给记忆容量的个体差异留下了很小的空间，这表明必须找到理解失败的其他解释。本项目的目标是通过以下三个目标开始探索这些替代方案：1)适应速度-精度权衡（SAT）方法，用于较差的读者。需要适应，因为该方法给参与者施加了时间压力，要求他们以特定的方式做出反应，而阅读能力差的读者可能由于阅读能力不足或意识到自己的阅读障碍而难以满足这种压力。这种方法在更广泛的人群中使用的有效性将使我们能够确定这种对WM能力的严格限制是整个阅读能力范围的特征，还是与后天的阅读技能相伴随。2) SAT方法的独特之处在于，它提供了对参与者存取记忆内容的速度的精确测量。对大学熟练读者的研究表明，一种非常快速的线索驱动访问机制可以通过快速将必要的信息恢复到活动记忆中来弥补有限的WM容量。我们将调查读者恢复先前发生的信息的速度的个体差异是否可能提供理解失败的另一种解释。为了更广泛地取样阅读能力，我们将集中在整个社区取样的非学位寻求青少年人口。3)线索驱动的内存访问的结果是来自内存中同样存在的类似但不正确的项目的干扰。如果词汇表征较差或竞争者减慢了正确项目的检索速度，则干扰可能会增加。我们采用SAT方法来区分这些可能性。这些研究将揭示理解过程与记忆内容相互作用方式的个体差异是定性的还是定量的。这对于确定最明智的补习方法是很重要的，尤其是在提高检索速度（即流畅性）和提高准确性（即词汇知识）的措施上的不同压力的价值。公共健康相关性：阅读和语言理解困难的常见解释是个体的工作记忆（WM）容量不同，然而最近的研究表明，工作记忆中主动保持的信息量非常小——可能只有一个项目。这给记忆容量的个体差异留下了很小的空间，这表明必须找到理解失败的其他解释。这个项目的目标是开始使用速度-准确性权衡技术的新扩展来探索这些替代方案，该技术已广泛用于熟练读者的记忆研究，但从未像当前项目中提出的那样广泛的阅读能力。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Reading and language comprehension requires the ability to identify relationships between linguistic units that are frequently non-adjacent. This means that comprehenders must be able to store partially interpreted material (e.g., the subject of a sentence whose verb occurs much later, viz. The boy with the coat with the blue stripes and the flashy buttons on the collar that he bought on sale last Tuesday sang at the bus stop.) A frequent explanation for comprehension difficulty is that individuals differ on the amount of Working Memory (WM) capacity they can devote to maintaining this information. Yet recent research in the memory domain using the Speed-Accuracy Tradeoff (SAT) method suggests that the amount of information actively maintained in working memory is quite small-perhaps as little as 1 item. This leaves very little room for individual differences in memory capacity, and suggests that alternative explanations for comprehension failure must be found. The goal of the present project is to begin exploring these alternatives via the following three aims: 1) Adaptation of the Speed-Accuracy Tradeoff (SAT) method for use with poor readers. Adaptation is required because the method puts time-pressure on participants to respond in a particular fashion, and poor readers may have difficulty meeting this pressure due to insufficient reading ability or inhibitions caused by awareness of their reading disability. The availability of this method for use with a broader population will enable us to determine whether such a severe limit on WM capacity is characteristic of throughout the range of reading ability, or whether it is concomitant with acquired reading skill. 2) The SAT method is unique in providing precise measures of the speed with which participants may access the contents of memory. Research with skilled readers from college populations suggests a very fast cue-driven access mechanism that serves to compensate for the restricted WM capacity by quickly restoring necessary information into active memory. We will investigate whether individual differences in the speed with which readers can restore previously occurring information may provide an alternative account of comprehension failure. In order to more broadly sample reading ability, we will focus on the population of non- degree seeking adolescents sampled throughout the community. 3) A consequence of cue-driven memory access is interference from similar, but incorrect items also present in memory. Interference may be increased if lexical representations are poor or else if retrieval speed for the correct item is slowed by competitors. We employ the SAT method to distinguish these possibilities. These investigations will reveal whether individual differences in the way that comprehension processes interact with the contents of memory are qualitative or quantitative. This is important for determining the most judicious remediation methods, especially the value of differential stress on measures for increasing retrieval speed (i.e., fluency) versus those that increase accuracy (i.e., vocabulary knowledge). PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: A frequent explanation for reading and language comprehension difficulty is that individuals differ in their Working Memory (WM) capacity, yet recent research suggests that the amount of information actively maintained in WM is quite small-perhaps as little as 1 item. This leaves very little room for individual differences in memory capacity, and suggests that alternative explanations for comprehension failure must be found. The goal of this project is to begin exploring these alternatives using a novel extension of the Speed- Accuracy Tradeoff technique, which has been used widely in memory research with skilled readers, but never with such a broad range of reading ability as that proposed in the current project.