{"title":"The role of executive functions in 9- to 12-year-old children's sentence processing: An eye-movement study","authors":"Nannan Cui, Yang Wang, Jiefei Luo, Yan Wu","doi":"10.1111/1467-9817.12449","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Background</h3>\n \n <p>Executive function (EF) plays a crucial role in children's reading. However, previous studies were based on offline products of reading comprehension. Online research is needed to reveal the core mechanisms underlying children's reading processing. By measuring children's working memory (WM) and cognitive flexibility (CF), we investigated whether individual differences in EF could modulate sentence processing and, if so, how they exert their roles.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Methods</h3>\n \n <p>The present study manipulated semantic congruency and the association between crucial words in a sentence. We recruited 89 Chinese children aged 9–12 years and monitored their eye movement.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Results</h3>\n \n <p>The study revealed distinct associations between reader- and text-related characteristics, as evidenced by eye-movement patterns during reading. A significant incongruency effect was observed in reading, underscoring the children's capacity to discern incongruent information. Children's WM and CF were found to modulate this process. Specifically, high-WM children showed more effective integration of incongruent information when the textual context was closely related during the later-stage processing. In contrast, low-WM children faced more challenges with incongruent words. Additionally, CF was influential during the early processing period. High-CF children exhibited longer early-stage reading times for incongruent words in associated contexts.</p>\n </section>\n \n <section>\n \n <h3> Conclusions</h3>\n \n <p>Individual differences in EF can modulate children's online sentence processing. However, different EF components may play different roles.</p>\n </section>\n </div>","PeriodicalId":47611,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Research in Reading","volume":"47 2","pages":"201-219"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Research in Reading","FirstCategoryId":"95","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9817.12449","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background
Executive function (EF) plays a crucial role in children's reading. However, previous studies were based on offline products of reading comprehension. Online research is needed to reveal the core mechanisms underlying children's reading processing. By measuring children's working memory (WM) and cognitive flexibility (CF), we investigated whether individual differences in EF could modulate sentence processing and, if so, how they exert their roles.
Methods
The present study manipulated semantic congruency and the association between crucial words in a sentence. We recruited 89 Chinese children aged 9–12 years and monitored their eye movement.
Results
The study revealed distinct associations between reader- and text-related characteristics, as evidenced by eye-movement patterns during reading. A significant incongruency effect was observed in reading, underscoring the children's capacity to discern incongruent information. Children's WM and CF were found to modulate this process. Specifically, high-WM children showed more effective integration of incongruent information when the textual context was closely related during the later-stage processing. In contrast, low-WM children faced more challenges with incongruent words. Additionally, CF was influential during the early processing period. High-CF children exhibited longer early-stage reading times for incongruent words in associated contexts.
Conclusions
Individual differences in EF can modulate children's online sentence processing. However, different EF components may play different roles.
期刊介绍:
Journal of Research in Reading provides an international forum for researchers into literacy. It is a refereed journal, principally devoted to reports of empirical studies in reading and related fields, and to informed reviews of relevant literature. The journal welcomes papers researching issues related to the learning, teaching and use of literacy in a variety of contexts; papers on the history and development of literacy; papers about policy and strategy for literacy as related to children and adults. Journal of Research in Reading encourages papers within any research paradigm and from researchers in any relevant field such as anthropology, cultural studies, education, history of education, language and linguistics, philosophy, psychology and sociology.