A Study On The Effects Of Working Memory Capacity On Reading Comprehension And Incidental Vocabulary Acquisition

“Working memory” refers to a capacity-limited system that provides simultaneous information processing and storage.It plays a key role in advanced cognitive activities such as language comprehension,production,reasoning and has always been a hotspot in cognitive psychology research.In recent decades,it has also attracted extensive attention in the second language acquisition field.Nowadays,the relationship between working memory and language comprehension is the main focus of working memory research.Research has shown that working memory is a crucial cognitive factor affecting foreign language comprehension.Since reading is one of the four basic skills of language learning,its relation with working memory has aroused great concern among scholars.Foreign researchers have testified the effects of working memory on naive reading comprehension through empirical studies,and subsequently,domestic researchers have explored the role of working memory on the comprehension of ambiguous sentences and compound sentences in Chinese reading.All in all,studies abroad and domestically all indicate that working memory has effects on native reading proficiency.However,not much attention was paid to the relationship between working memory and second language reading ability.Moreover,the specific effects of information processing task and storage task of working memory on reading proficiency need to be further studied.While reading,it is believed that learners could acquire vocabulary.In the 1980 s,with the proposal of “incidental vocabulary acquisition”,a great majority of reading research explored the effects of reading on incidental vocabulary acquisition and has proved that reading is an effective way for incidental vocabulary acquisition.Later on,various factors,such as different reading tasks,learner's vocabulary size and word guessing strategies have been taken into account in studying incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading.However,the cognitive role of working memory has been ignored to a large extent.In view of this,the present study is conducted with Chinese English learners as the subjects,to explore working memory's role in English reading comprehension and incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading,and to investigate further the effects of information processing task and storage task of working memory on English reading comprehension and incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading.Accordingly,this study will discuss the following three questions in detail:(1)Do learners with large working memory capacity yield better results in reading comprehension? If they do,which part(the processing task or the storage task)of their working memory has greater effects on reading comprehension performance?(2)Do learners with large working memory capacity acquire more vocabulary incidentally in reading comprehension? If they do,which part(the processing task or thestorage task)of their working memory has greater effects on incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading comprehension?(3)Can the vocabulary incidentally acquired through reading comprehension be retained in long-term working memory of both large and small working memory capacity learners?Considering the effects of students' language proficiency and vocabulary size on reading and incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading,the results of the students' vocabulary size test and the scores of English tests for Post-graduate Entrance Examination were taken into account.Thereupon,from 200 non-English major postgraduates in Grade One in Lanzhou Jiaotong University,a sample of 50 students were selected as participants.They were divided into high,medium and low working memory span groups according to the results of the Reading Span Test.At the experimental stage,they attended reading comprehension tests,immediate and delayed incidental vocabulary acquisition tests respectively.After statistic collection and analysis,the results showed:(1)participants with large working memory capacity yielded better results in reading comprehension,and the processing task of working memory affected participants' reading proficiency more;(2)participants with large working memory capacity acquired more vocabulary through reading comprehension,and the storage task of working memory had more effects on participants' proficiency of incidental vocabulary acquisition;and(3)the acquired vocabulary through reading could be retained in learners' long-term working memory.The results not only prove the effects of working memory on cognitive learning activities,but also expound the leading roles of information processing task and storage task in different cognitive learning activities,especially in complex cognitive activities.These research findings provide empirical evidence to support the Task-switching Hypothesis of working memory theory;meanwhile,the results have testified the operability of working memory model as well.From the above results,some pedagogical implications can be drawn regarding reading and vocabulary teaching.Firstly,both language teachers and learners should notice the importance of working memory on reading and incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading.Based on the leading roles of information processing task and storage task in different cognitive learning activities,teachers could design various teaching activities.In addition,teachers ought to adopt scientific working memory training methods to expand learners' working memory capacity.And language learners themselves must realize that different cognitive activities have different demands on information processing task and storage task.They should do positively and actively working memory training to expand their working memory capacity,thus to improve efficiently reading proficiency and enlarge vocabulary size.Secondly,it has been testified that incidentally acquired vocabulary through reading comprehension could be retained in learners' LT-WM.Therefore,language teachersshall guide students to read extensively and learners have to cultivate good reading habits in order to improve reading proficiency and enlarge vocabulary size.