The Effects Of Phonological Loop On Inferential Processing During Chinese Text Reading

Over the past decades,inferential processing during reading has been a major concern in the field of psycholinguistics,psychology as well as cognitive neuroscience.A variety of methods(i.e.,offline and online methods)have been deployed to examine the effects of working memory(WM)on inferential processing during text comprehension.Therefore,inferential processes during reading has been gradually revealed.However,roles of WM subcomponents,such as central executive(CE),phonological loop(PL),visuospatial sketchpad,and episodic buffer in inference processes have seldom been explored.In light of this,the current study investigated the effects of two components of PL——articulatory rehearsal device and phonological store device on online causal inference generation during Chinese text reading in a dual-task paradigm.A total of 85 Chinese-native university students participated in the experiments.Experiment 1 aimed to explore the role of articulatory rehearsal device in online causal inference generation.The purpose of Experiment 2 was to investigate the role of phonological store device in causal inference processing.In both experiments,participants were required to read three-sentence inference and control texts in different reading conditions and then answer comprehension questions related to targeted inferences.Results suggested that 1)articulatory rehearsal device of PL affected readers' online processing of causal inferences during Chinese text reading;2)this device interacted with text type to co-influence causal inferences during text reading;3)phonological store device imposed an effect on online inference generation;4)no interaction was found between this device and text type in inference generation,but text type influenced Chinese online inference generation.This study investigated the effects of PL subcomponents of WM on online causal inference processes during Chinese text reading among Chinese students,and revealed the roles of articulatory rehearsal device and phonological store device in inference generation during text reading.It not only extends previous relevant studies but also contributes to the understandings of certain inferential generation theory.Pedagogically,this study suggests teachers put emphasis on phonological knowledge in teaching reading and calls for the attention on the effects of PL on the neural processes of inference generation in future studies with more neuroscience techniques,such as ERPs,fMRI,PET.