The Influence Of Inhibitory Mechanism In Working Memory On Chinese L2 Learners’ Comprehension Of Syntactic Ambiguity Sentence

In the course of information processing,the processer should not only focus on the information but also have to inhibit the interference of irrelevant information to ensure the goal information processed effectively.Inhibition is one of the important mechanisms in working memory.According to the previous studies and theories and based on two experiments,the present paper studies the relationship between inhibitory mechanism in working memory and Chinese L2 learners’ comprehension of syntactic ambiguity sentence,and it attempts to answer the following research questions:1.Do the differences of working memory capacity influence Chinese L2 learners’comprehension of syntactic ambiguity sentence?2.How does the inhibitory mechanism in working memory affect Chinese L2 learners’comprehension of syntactic ambiguity sentence?3.What is the relationship between working memory capacity and inhibitory mechanism in working memory in the Chinese L2 learners’ comprehension of syntactic ambiguity sentence?In this paper,we carry out two experiments.The first experiment is a test about working memory capacity.Sixty-one subjects take this task and thirty subjects are selected to carry out the next experiment according to their performance in the first test.And the second experiment is carried out to analyze the relationship between inhibitory mechanism in working memory and Chinese L2 learners’comprehension of syntactic ambiguity sentence.The major findings are as follows:Firstly,the differences of working memory capacity influence Chinese L2 learners’comprehension of syntactic ambiguity sentence.The high working memory capacity group shows no significant differences during the process of syntactic ambiguity sentences and corresponding unambiguous control sentences comprehension,while the results of low working memory capacity group show significant differences between the error scores of syntactic ambiguity sentences and corresponding unambiguous control sentences comprehension.Secondly,in the comprehension of syntactic ambiguity sentences,participants of high working memory capacity with larger working memory span do better in inhibiting the irrelevant and interfering information.The inhibitory mechanism is highly activated to dampen or delete the irrelevant information to improve the efficiency of sentence comprehension.While,in syntactic ambiguity sentence processing,the inhibitory mechanism of the readers with low working memory capacity is difficult to be activated because of working memory restrictions.Lastly,English working memory capacity is closely and positively correlated with L2 syntactic ambiguity sentence comprehension.Learners with high working memory capacity are prone to activate the inhibition in working memory to support their processing activities.At the end of this paper,teaching implications are proposed with the hope of deepening people’s understanding in this area and benefiting the teaching and learning of English.