The interactive effect of working memory and text difficulty on metacomprehension accuracy

Abstract

We investigated how working memory capacity (WMC) and text difficulty affect metacomprehension accuracy. Participants completed the operation-span test to measure WMC and ability to read expository texts. Under the easy-text condition, participants read 4 texts with increasing local cohesion, whereas under the difficult-text condition, participants read 4 original texts. Participants assigned a comprehension rating to each text and then completed a comprehension test. The results revealed a significant interactive effect of WMC and text difficulty on metacomprehension accuracy in Experiments 1 and 2. Under the easy-text condition, higher-WMC readers monitored their comprehension less accurately than did lower-WMC readers. In contrast, higher-WMC readers monitored their comprehension more accurately than did lower-WMC readers under the difficult-text condition. These results suggest that text difficulty may affect allocation of attentional resources.

Keywords:

• Metacomprehension
• Working memory
• Text difficulty

Notes

¹We could not examine whether participants appropriately processed sentences in the simple Japanese reading-span test, developed by Osaka and Osaka (1994). In contrast, we were able to check whether participants appropriately processed equations in the operation-span test because participants were asked to read aloud, process equations and offer judgments about which equations were correct and incorrect. Therefore, we used the OST in the present study.

²All-or-nothing load scoring involves summing the sizes of the sets in which participants recalled all words.

³The effect of the order of the condition on metacomprehension accuracy was not significant in Experiment 1. Thus, no difference in metacomprehension accuracy was observed between the groups that were ordered from easy to difficult (M=.42, SE=.13) or difficult to easy (M=.54, SE=.13) under both easy-text conditions [t(29)=.10, p=.75]. Additionally, no difference in accuracy between the groups that were ordered from easy to difficult (M=.30, SE=.17) and from difficult to easy (M=.37, SE=.15) was observed [t(29)=.00, p=.99] under the difficult-text conditions.