Eye Movement Study On Reading Comprehension Monitoring Of Second Language Learners

Reading comprehension monitoring is one aspect of meta-cognitive control in reading comprehension,it is the process by which an individual evaluates the state of his/her understanding of information.Reading comprehension monitoring directs the readers cognitive processes to make sense of incoming textual information.It is the awareness of whether comprehension is occurring and the conscious application of appropriate strategies to correct comprehension(Baker & Brown,1984;Oakhill,Hartt,& Samols,2005).This study used the error detection paradigm to explore the reading comprehension monitoring of second language learners.We changed the types of inconsistent information,including vocabulary inconsistencies and internal inconsistencies.We recorded the detection accuracy of inconsistent information in the text and eye movement during the participants' reading to discuss whether the reading comprehension of the second language follows the Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis(LIH)or the Language Threshold Hypothesis(LTH).In this study,eye movement technology were adopted to explore the reading comprehension monitoring of second language learners.Experiment 1 explored the differences of second language learners at different reading levels in reading comprehension monitoring.Two second language reading levels and three types of inconsistent information were used as independent variables to collect the detection accuracy,the overall eye movement indicators: first-pass reading time,total reading time,re-reading time and number of fixations;and partial eye movement indicators: gaze duration on target words,total fixation duration,regression time and number of fixations as the reasons variables.Experiment 2explored the influence of two different familiarity of target words on reading comprehension monitoring.Two different familiarity of target words and three types of inconsistent information were used as independent variables,and the dependent variables were the same as those in experiment 1.The results of Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 were(1)second language learners paid more attention to inconsistent information.(2)The detection of internal inconsistencies tended to be more difficult than the detection of external inconsistencies in second language learners' reading comprehension monitoring,and second language learners are more likely to find the lexical inconsistent information in the text.(3)Reading comprehension monitoring of second language learners was influenced by the second language reading level,second languagelearners with high reading level were better at reading comprehension monitoring of second language than those with low reading level.(4)The reading comprehension monitoring of the target words with high familiarity was significantly better than that of the target words with low familiarity,second language learners showed more difficulty in processing low familiarity target words.In the later stage of cognitive processing,different familiarity of target words an impact on second language reading comprehension monitoring.The experimental results show that the second language learners are better at reading comprehension monitoring of vocabulary inconsistencies than the internal inconsistencies.In second language reading,second language learners with high reading level are better at reading comprehension monitoring than those with low reading level.In second language reading,second language learners are better at reading comprehension monitoring of the target words with high familiarity than the target words with low familiarity.The results of this study supports the Language Threshold Hypothesis.