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

我们中的大多数人每天都会根据自己在第一语言或第二语言中读到的内容进行推理和做出决定(例如，阅读社交媒体上的帖子并决定是否喜欢或分享；阅读申请材料并决定聘用谁来工作；阅读拨款建议书并决定资助谁)。认知科学和神经科学的主要研究领域分别阐述了阅读(例如，解码单词、句子和语篇)和思维(例如，推理、推理、决策)的认知机制。然而，令人惊讶的是，很少有工作利用两者的理论和经验力量来研究全面的认知过程，这些过程使我们能够将我们读到的东西转化为目标驱动的决策结果。我把这种全球认知和神经认知能力统称为阅读思维能力。在这个提案中，我描述了一个理论驱动的研究项目，该项目调查多语言成年人如何用第一语言和第二语言进行阅读思维。这项研究计划与我18年的NSE研究计划的长期目标完全一致。这是为了了解人们特定于语言和领域的神经认知能力如何使我们能够以高度复杂的、受语境驱动的方式产生和理解语言。这个长期目标在这里转化为几个短期目标。这些是为了调查人们是如何对几种类型的文本进行阅读以进行思考的，这些文本在阅读和思维需求上存在系统的差异。这些包括：(1)需要推理和决策的多句文本(逻辑推理、思维推理和讽刺推理)；(2)需要道德推理和决策的多句和段落长度的文本；(3)需要真实世界推理和决策的自然主义文本(即模拟的社交媒体帖子；虚拟招聘任务中性别不同的模拟学生简历)。所有的研究都操纵着同样的人是用他们的第一语言还是第二语言阅读文本材料，以及文本是或多或少难以理解的。所有研究都利用眼动来衡量阅读，以及独特地分析“快”和“慢”阅读和决策过程以及决策结果的行为反应。这项工作的创新之处在于，它将阅读和思维作为认知过程和结果的转换性重新定义；它横跨了语言和认知科学中原本孤立的文学领域；它在材料和任务开发方面的方法论讲究，以及对公认的眼动认知测量的使用；它与多种语言的相关性，以及我们的阅读思维能力如何影响与公平、多样性和包容性有关的生态有效文本的决策。重要的是，这项工作为加拿大各个层次的不同学者--本科生、研究生和博士后--提供了宝贵的研究培训和领导机会。

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.