Reading-To-Think: How We Infer, Reason, And Make Decisions In A First And Second Language

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Most of us reason and make decisions every day based on what we read in a first or second language (e.g., reading a social media post and deciding whether to like or share; reading application materials and deciding who to hire for a job; reading grant proposals and deciding who to fund). Major research areas within the cognitive and neural sciences separately illuminate the cognitive mechanisms of reading (e.g., decoding words, sentences, and discourse) and thinking (e.g., inferencing, reasoning, decision making). However, surprisingly little work leverages the theoretical and empirical power of both to study the full range of cognitive processes that empower us to transform what we read into goal-driven decision outcomes. I collectively refer to this global cognitive and neurocognitive capacity as READING-TO-THINK. In this proposal, I describe a theory-driven program of research that investigates how multilingual adults read-to-think in their first and second language. This program of research perfectly aligns with the LONG-TERM GOAL of my 18-year NSE research program. This is to understand how people's language-specific and domain-general neurocognitive capacities enable us to produce and comprehend language in a highly sophisticated, contextually-driven manner. This LONG-TERM GOAL translates here to several SHORT-TERM GOALS. These are to investigate how people read-to-think for several types of texts that vary systematically in reading and thinking demands. These include: (1) multi-sentence texts that require inferencing and decision making (logical, mentalizing, and ironic inferences); (2) multi-sentence and paragraph-length texts that require moral reasoning and decision making; and (3) naturalistic texts that require real-world inferencing and decision making (i.e., simulated social media posts; simulated student CVs that differ in gender within a fictitious hiring task). All studies manipulate whether the same people read text materials in their first or second language, and whether the texts are more or less difficult to understand. All studies make use of eye-movement measures of reading, along with behavioural responses that uniquely assay "fast" and "slow" reading and decision processes, as well as decision outcomes. The innovation of this work lies in its transformational re-conception of reading and thinking as cognitively bound in both process and outcome; its transversal of otherwise siloed literature areas within the language and cognitive sciences; its methodological fastidiousness in materials and task development and use of well-established eye-movement measures of cognition; and its relevance to multilingualism and how our reading-to-think capacity impacts decision-making for ecologically valid texts that relate to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Importantly, the work affords invaluable research training and leadership opportunities in Canada to diverse scholars at every level - undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral.