A Study On The Effects Of Stress And Working Memory Capacity On English Learners’ Inferential Processing During Their Reading Comprehension

Working memory (WM) is an important construct in the domain of cognitive psychology. It is acapacity-limited system which stores and manipulates information temporarily. It plays an important rolein many complex cognitive activities such as language comprehension, problem solving, learning andreasoning. Psychologists assume that WMC is a good predictor for many cognitive activities. Against thisbackground, the relationship between WM and reading comprehension became the research focus. Foreignresearchers have explored the role of WM in mother-tongue reading and have achieved great success. Itwas not until the1990s that some second language (L2) researchers began to pay attention to the role ofWM in L2reading comprehension.Many studies have confirmed the role of WM in reading comprehension. However, most of them treatreading comprehension as a global construct. Meanwhile, many researches have confirmed that situationalstress, as a frequent learning environment, has effect on L2reading. However, the internal mechanism hasnot been accounted for. Based on relevant theories, the current study aims to explore the role of WM playsin two reading types which differs in inferential degrees、the effect of stress on the two reading types, andthe internal relationships between WM and stress.The current research employs an empirical research method and the methodological factors are strictlycontrolled as well as the participants and experimental material.33subjects with different WM capacitiesare tested in two situations which differs in stress level. The reading material embodies two reading types:literal comprehension and inferential comprehension. The descriptive statistics,2×2mixed ANOVA andindependent sample t-test are used to analyze the data.The findings of the study are as follows:1) WMC has different effects on the two reading types and ithas significant effect on inferential comprehension. The learners with higher WMC have greater accuracyin inferential reading. Since the literal comprehension is regarded as automatic processing while theinferential comprehension belongs to controlled processing which has high demands on cognitive resources;2) Stress decrease the learners’ reading accuracy. And it has greater effect on inferential comprehensionthan literal comprehension. Since stress and resultant anxiety consume some cognitive resources andincrease the load of limited-capacity WM;3) It was the influence of stress on WM system that causes thedecrements in inferential reading accuracy under stressful condition. According to attentional control theory,anxiety impairs the goal-directed attentional system and relies more on the stimulus-driven attentional system. Meanwhile, anxiety impairs the inhibition and shifting functions of central executive component.The final conclusions are obtained: In the reading activities which required higher cognitive resources(such as inferential comprehension), the learners will have greater reading accuracy with more WMC andlow stress. In contrast, WMC and stress have no significant effect on literal reading accuracy.