Comprehension by reading versus hearing.

8 comparable groups of subjects were each exposed to 3 mythological stories, in one of the following conditions: by audition (tape recording); by reading through once; by read-studying, for the time taken for the auditory presentation; by audition concurrent with reading. True-false post-tests were administered after the material was presented. A single read-through was as effective as auditory presentation; both were slightly inferior to read-study or reading accompanied by the auditory presentation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of reading purpose and working memory capacity on the processing of expository text.

The extent to which low- and high-WMC (working memory capacity) readers adjust cognitive processes to fit the reading purpose was examined. Participants performed a verbal protocol task as they read an expository text under 1 of 2 reading purpose conditions, entertainment or study, and then completed a free-recall task. When reading to study, low-WMC readers emphasized less demanding processes over more demanding processes to a greater extent than high-WMC readers and recalled less. When reading for entertainment, patterns of processes and recall were similar across readers. Thus, all readers adjusted processing to fit the reading purpose; however, when reading for study, low-WMC readers emphasized processes that were the least demanding on their resources but not necessarily beneficial for recall. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Speech perception from an auditory and visual viewpoint": Erratum.

Reports an error in "Speech perception from an auditory and visual viewpoint" by C. L. Searle (Canadian Journal of Psychology Revue Canadienne de Psychologie, 1982[Sep], Vol 36[3], 402-419). A programming error occurred in preparing Figure 6. The correct figure looks quite similar to Figure 7, except that the upper eight components are considerably smaller in Figure 6 than in Figure 7. Values quoted in the text remain unchanged. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1983-09579-001.) Processing in the peripheral auditory system of the human ear profoundly alters the characteristics of all acoustic signals impinging on the ear. Some of the 1st-order properties of this peripheral processing are now reasonably well understood: Humans see a heavily overlapped set of filters, with increasingly broader bandwidths at high frequencies, which results in good spectral resolution at low frequencies and good temporal resolution at high frequencies. Results of an examination of speech and music by this system are discussed. An attempt is then made to synthesize several papers on auditory and visual psychophysics, and to speculate on auditory-signal processing analogous to visual-color processing. Several simplified auditory representations of speech are proposed. (French abstract) (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teaching reading to poor readers in the intermediate grades: A comparison of text difficulty.

The authors compared the influence of text difficulty--reading-level matched or grade-level matched--on the growth of poor readers' reading ability over 18 weeks of 1-to-1 tutoring. Forty-six 3rd-5th graders, including 25 with disabilities, were assigned randomly to 1 of 2 tutoring approaches or a control condition. Significant differences favored tutored children. Between approaches, the only significant difference was oral reading fluency, which favored students who read material at their reading level. Students who began with lower fluency made stronger gains in text matched to reading level; students with higher fluency profited from both treatments. When the 3 groups were combined, fluency was the strongest contributor to reading comprehension outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of context on auditory stream segregation.

The authors examined the effect of preceding context on auditory stream segregation. Low tones (A), high tones (B), and silences (-) were presented in an ABA- pattern. Participants indicated whether they perceived 1 or 2 streams of tones. The A tone frequency was fixed, and the B tone was the same as the A tone or had 1 of 3 higher frequencies. Perception of 2 streams in the current trial increased with greater frequency separation between the A and B tones (Δf). Larger Δf in previous trials modified this pattern, causing less streaming in the current trial. This occurred even when listeners were asked to bias their perception toward hearing 1 stream or 2 streams. The effect of previous Δf was not due to response bias because simply perceiving 2 streams in the previous trial did not cause less streaming in the current trial. Finally, the effect of previous Δf was diminished, though still present, when the silent duration between trials was increased to 5.76 s. The time course of this context effect on streaming implicates the involvement of auditory sensory memory or neural adaptation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Auditory imagery shapes movement timing and kinematics: Evidence from a musical task.

The role of anticipatory auditory imagery in music-like sequential action was investigated by examining timing accuracy and kinematics using a motion capture system. Musicians responded to metronomic pacing signals by producing three unpaced taps on three vertically aligned keys at the given tempo. Taps triggered tones in two out of three blocked feedback conditions, where key-to-tone mappings were compatible or incompatible in terms of spatial and pitch height. Results indicate that, while timing was most accurate without tones, movements were smaller in amplitude and less forceful (i.e., acceleration prior to impact was lowest) when tones were present. Moreover, timing was more accurate and movements were less forceful with compatible than with incompatible auditory feedback. Observing these effects at the first tap (before tone onset) suggests that anticipatory auditory imagery modulates the temporal kinematics of regularly timed auditory action sequences, like those found in music. Such cross-modal ideomotor processes may function to facilitate planning efficiency and biomechanical economy in voluntary action. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessing text representations with recognition: The interaction of domain knowledge and text coherence.

Readers construct at least 2 interrelated mental representations when they comprehend a text: a textbase and a situation model. Two experiments were conducted with recognition memory to examine how domain knowledge and text coherence influence readers' textbase and situation-model representations. In Experiment 1, participants made remember-know judgments to text ideas. Knowledge and coherence interacted to influence remember judgments differently than know judgments. In Experiment 2, the authors used the process-dissociation procedure to obtain recollection and familiarity estimates. Knowledge and coherence interacted to influence recollection estimates but not familiarity estimates. The authors claim that recollection and familiarity can be used as markers of the different processes involved in constructing a textbase and a situation model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading spaced and unspaced Chinese text: Evidence from eye movements.

Native Chinese readers' eye movements were monitored as they read text that did or did not demark word boundary information. In Experiment 1, sentences had 4 types of spacing: normal unspaced text, text with spaces between words, text with spaces between characters that yielded nonwords, and finally text with spaces between every character. The authors investigated whether the introduction of spaces into unspaced Chinese text facilitates reading and whether the word or, alternatively, the character is a unit of information that is of primary importance in Chinese reading. Global and local measures indicated that sentences with unfamiliar word spaced format were as easy to read as visually familiar unspaced text. Nonword spacing and a space between every character produced longer reading times. In Experiment 2, highlighting was used to create analogous conditions: normal Chinese text, highlighting that marked words, highlighting that yielded nonwords, and highlighting that marked each character. The data from both experiments clearly indicated that words, and not individual characters, are the unit of primary importance in Chinese reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading comprehension of scientific text: A domain-specific test of the direct and inferential mediation model of reading comprehension.

Reading comprehension is strongly associated with academic achievement, including science achievement. A better understanding of reading comprehension processes in science text might hold promise for improving science achievement in the long run. We tested the fit of the direct and inferential mediation (DIME) model of reading comprehension (Cromley & Azevedo, 2007) with 737 students in an introductory biology course required for majors. Participants completed multiple choice measures of biology-specific prior-topic knowledge, inference, reading strategy use, reading vocabulary, word reading fluency, and reading comprehension in small groups in our laboratory. Using structural equation modeling to test the fit of the DIME model to the data, we found excellent fit indices for all models. However, the original DIME model fit significantly worse than the measurement model, and a modified model that included a path from reading vocabulary to reading strategy use fit significantly better. Results from the modified model suggest that comprehension interventions for undergraduate students with biology majors might use preteaching to build topic knowledge. We discuss the need for future experimental studies to confirm the vocabulary-reading strategies link. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trial-to-trial carryover in auditory short-term memory.

Using a short-term recognition memory task, the authors evaluated the carryover across trials of 2 types of auditory information: the characteristics of individual study sounds (item information) and the relationships between the study sounds (study set homogeneity). On each trial, subjects heard 2 successive broadband study sounds and then decided whether a subsequently presented probe sound had been in the study set. On some trials, the similarity of the probe item to stimuli presented on the preceding trial was manipulated. This item information interfered with recognition, and false alarms increased from 0.4% to 4.4%. Moreover, the interference was tuned so that only stimuli that were very similar to each other interfered. On other trials, the relationship among stimuli was manipulated to alter the criterion subjects used in making recognition judgments. The effect of this manipulation was confined to the trial on which the criterion change was generated and did not affect the subsequent trial. These results demonstrate the existence of a sharply tuned carryover of auditory item information but no carryover of the effects of study set homogeneity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye movements when reading transposed text: The importance of word-beginning letters.

Participants' eye movements were recorded as they read sentences with words containing transposed adjacent letters. Transpositions were either external (e.g., problme, rpoblem) or internal (e.g., porblem, probelm) and at either the beginning (e.g., rpoblem, porblem) or end (e.g., problme, probelm) of words. The results showed disruption for words with transposed letters compared to the normal baseline condition, and the greatest disruption was observed for word-initial transpositions. In Experiment 1, transpositions within low frequency words led to longer reading times than when letters were transposed within high frequency words. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the position of word-initial letters is most critical even when parafoveal preview of words to the right of fixation is unavailable. The findings have important implications for the roles of different letter positions in word recognition and the effects of parafoveal preview on word recognition processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in reading to summarize expository text: Evidence from eye fixation patterns.

Eye fixation patterns were used to identify reading strategies of adults as they read multiple-topic expository texts. A clustering technique distinguished 4 strategies that differed with respect to the ways in which readers reprocessed text. The processing of fast linear readers was characterized by the absence of fixations returning to previous text. Slow linear readers made lots of forward fixations and reinspected each sentence before moving to the next. The reading of nonselective reviewers was characterized by look backs to previous sentences. The distinctive feature of topic structure processors was that they paid close attention to headings. They also had the largest working-memory capacity and wrote the most accurate text summaries. Thus, qualitatively distinct reading strategies are observable among competent, adult readers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult Age Differences in Knowledge-Driven Reading.

The authors investigated the effects of domain knowledge on online reading among younger and older adults. Individuals were randomly assigned to either a domain-relevant (i.e., high-knowledge) or domain-irrelevant (i.e., low-knowledge) training condition. Two days later, participants read target passages on a computer that drew on information presented in the high-knowledge training session. For both age groups, knowledge improved comprehension and recall and facilitated the processing of topic shifts during reading. In addition, domain knowledge had differential effects on processing across the 2 age groups. Among older (but not younger) readers, domain knowledge increased the time allocated to organization and integration processes (wrap-up) and increased the frequency of knowledge-based inferences during recall. These results suggest that among older readers, domain knowledge engenders an investment of processing resources during reading, which is used to create a more elaborated representation of the situation model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-regulated reading in adulthood.

Young and older adults read a series of passages of 3 different genres for an immediate assessment of text memory (measured by recall and true/false questions). Word-by-word reading times were measured and decomposed into components reflecting resource allocation to particular linguistic processes using regression. Allocation to word and textbase processes showed some consistency across the 3 text types and was predictive of memory performance. Older adults allocated more time to word and textbase processes than the young adults did but showed enhanced contextual facilitation. Structural equation modeling showed that greater resource allocation to word processes was required among readers with relatively low working memory spans and poorer verbal ability and that greater resource allocation to textbase processes was engendered by higher verbal ability. Results are discussed in terms of a model of self-regulated language processing suggesting that older readers may compensate for processing deficiencies through greater reliance on discourse context and on increases in resource allocation that are enabled through growth in crystallized ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overcoming inefficient reading skills.

Although experienced readers vary considerably in reading skill, skill measures often are uncorrelated with literal comprehension. According to the Compensatory-Encoding Model of reading, less automated reading skills and a small verbal working-memory capacity can be surmounted by slowing reading rate, pausing, looking back, and by other means. This important prediction is largely untested. In the present study, 76 readers were assessed on their levels of verbal efficiency. They were also recorded thinking aloud while reading text. Protocols were analyzed for evidence of compensation deployment. Analyses revealed that those with less automated reading skills deployed them more often. As expected, verbal efficiency was uncorrelated with literal comprehension but verbal working-memory capacity was positively correlated with inferential comprehension. Educational implications are derived. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Heterogeneity of auditory verbal working memory in schizophrenia.

The heterogeneity of schizophrenia remains an obstacle for understanding its pathophysiology. Studies using a tone discrimination screening test to classify patients have found evidence for 2 subgroups having either a specific deficit in verbal working memory (WM) or deficits in both verbal and nonverbal memory. This study aimed to (a) replicate in larger samples differences between these subgroups in auditory verbal WM; (b) evaluate their performance on tests of explicit memory and sustained attention; (c) determine the relation of verbal WM deficits to auditory hallucinations and other symptoms; and (d) examine medication effects. The verbal WM and tone discrimination performance did not differ between medicated (n = 45) and unmedicated (n = 38) patients. Patients with schizophrenia who passed the tone screening test (discriminators; n = 60) were compared with those who did not (nondiscriminators; n = 23) and healthy controls (n = 47). The discriminator subgroup showed poorer verbal WM than did controls and a deficit in verbal but not visual memory on the Wechsler Memory Scale–Revised (Wechsler, 1987), whereas the nondiscriminator subgroup showed overall poorer performance on both verbal and nonverbal tests and a marked deficit in sustained attention. Verbal WM deficits in discriminators were correlated with auditory hallucinations but not with negative symptoms. The results are consistent with a verbal memory deficit in a subgroup of schizophrenia having intact auditory perception, which may stem from dysfunction of language-related cortical regions, and a more generalized cognitive deficit in a subgroup having auditory perceptual and attentional dysfunction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Speech recognition and working memory capacity in young-elderly listeners: Effects of hearing sensitivity.

Young normal-hearing listeners and young-elderly listeners between 55 and 65 years of age, ranging from near-normal hearing to moderate hearing loss, were compared using different speech recognition tasks (consonant recognition in quiet and in noise, and time-compressed sentences) and working memory tasks (serial word recall and digit ordering). The results showed that the group of young-elderly listeners performed worse on both the speech recognition and working memory tasks than the young listeners. However, when pure-tone audiometric thresholds were used as a covariate variable, the significant differences between groups disappeared. These results support the hypothesis that sensory decline in young-elderly listeners seems to be an important factor in explaining the decrease in speech processing and working memory capacity observed at these ages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Scientists are not deficient in mental imagery: Galton revised.

In 1880, Galton carried out an investigation of imagery in a sample of distinguished men and a sample of nonscientists (adolescent male students). He concluded that scientists were either totally lacking in visual imagery or had "feeble" powers of mental imagery. This finding has been widely accepted in the secondary literature in psychology. A replication of Galton's study with modern scientists and modern university undergraduates found no scientists totally lacking in visual imagery and very few with feeble visual imagery. Examination of Galton's published data shows that his own published data do not support his claims about deficient visual imagery in scientists. The modern data for scientists and nonscientists and the 1880 data for scientists and nonscientists are in agreement in showing that all groups report substantial imagery on recollective memory tasks such as Galton's breakfast questionnaire. We conclude that Galton's conclusions were an example of theory-laden interpretation of data based on the initial responses from several very salient scientists who reported little or no visual imagery on Galton's imagery questionnaire. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of a voluntary summer reading intervention on reading activities and reading achievement.

The causal effects of a voluntary summer reading intervention on children's reading activities and reading achievement were assessed in a randomized experiment involving 331 children in Grades 1-5. Children were pretested in the spring on a standardized test of reading achievement (Stanford Achievement Test, 10th ed.), on the Elementary Reading Attitudes Survey, and on a reading preference survey. At the end of the school year, children were stratified by their grade level and classroom and were randomly assigned to receive 10 books matched to their reading levels and preferences during summer vacation or after the administration of posttests. Children in the treatment group received books through airmail in July and August. In September, children were readministered the reading test and completed a survey of their summer reading activities. Although the treatment group reported reading more books and participating in more literacy activities than did the control group, there was no significant difference in reading achievement. Recommendations for enhancing the effects of voluntary reading through teacher-directed instruction and for conducting a replication study are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)