Reading Skill: Modeling Individual and Text Interactions

描述(申请人提供)：文本理解几乎在所有领域都是获取知识的重要手段。如果个人要对自己的身体、情感和经济状况做出明智的决定，处理复杂的书面信息的能力是必不可少的。阅读涉及与读者相关的因素(例如单词解码技能、背景知识)和与文本相关的属性(例如句法复杂性、连贯性)之间的复杂交互作用。本研究的目的是了解读者特征和文本属性是如何结合在一起影响阅读过程和理解成绩的。我们利用心理测量学的最新进展，包括多水平建模，以一种比以前更复杂的方式来检查读者和文本的互动。在本研究中，阅读时间被分解以揭示理解的子成分过程。单词、句子和文本的属性被用来预测阅读--具体地说，就是年轻人的眼球运动和凝视。然后，将特定文本属性与阅读之间的关系用作第二水平分析中的标准变量，以确定它们如何受到大量读者特征(例如，单词解码能力、工作记忆容量)的影响。这项提议的目的之一是调查两个密切相关的理论问题。首先，在工作记忆任务上的表现和句子理解之间的共同差异是什么？我们比较了因工作记忆能力的个体差异而产生协变的模型和因语言技能和经验的个体差异而产生协变的模型。第二，阅读技能的本质是什么？我们比较了由于单一机制(例如，单词解码能力)的差异而导致技能差异的模型，以及由于多种机制(语言特定的机制，如单词解码技能)和一般认知机制(如WM能力)的差异而产生差异的模型。在一定程度上，文本的性质与读者的技能相匹配，这有助于理解。该项目有助于制定课文修订指南，以提高不同读者群体的理解能力。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Text Comprehension is an important means of knowledge acquisition in almost all domains. The ability to process complex, written information is essential if individuals are to make informed decisions regarding their physical, emotional, and financial well being. Reading involves complex interactions between reader-related factors (e.g., word-decoding skill, background knowledge) and text-related properties (e.g., syntactic complexity, coherence). The goal of this study is to understand how reader characteristics and text properties combine to influence reading processes and comprehension performance. We capitalize on recent advances in psychometrics, involving multilevel modeling, to examine reader and text interactions in a more sophisticated manner than has been possible before. In this study, reading time is decomposed to reveal the subcomponent processes of comprehension. Properties of words, sentences, and texts are used to predict reading-specifically, young adults' eye movements and fixations. The relations between specific text properties and reading are then used as criterion variables in second-level analyses to determine how they are influenced by a large number of reader characteristics (e.g., word-decoding ability, working-memory (WM) capacity). One aim of this proposal is to investigate two closely related, theoretical issues. First, what accounts for the covariation between performance on WM tasks and sentence understanding? We compare models in which the covariation is due to individual differences in WM capacity and models in which the covariation is due to individual differences in language skill and experience. Second, what is the nature of reading skill? We compare models in which differences in skill are due to variation in a single mechanism (e.g., word-decoding ability) and models in which differences are due to variation in multiple mechanisms- language specific mechanisms, such as word-decoding skill, and general cognitive mechanisms, such as WM capacity, This project is relevant to public health in its potential to improve the comprehensibility of written health information. Comprehension is facilitated to the extent that the properties of the text match the skills of the reader. This project can contribute to the development of guidelines for text revision that will improve comprehension in heterogeneous groups of readers.