Abstract

BARREYRO, Juan Pablo  and  MOLINARI MAROTTO, Carlos. Individual differences in text comprehension: inferences and working memory capacity. Anu. investig. [online]. 2006, vol.13. ISSN 1851-1686.

Causal inferences are generated during reading, relating separate parts of the text and activating previous knowledge, in order to obtain sufficient explanation for the events described in each sentence. Just & Carpenter (1992), Engle, Kane and Tuholsky (1999) appealed to the working memory construct to model the storage and cognitive resources required during reading. This paper focus upon recent research on individual differences in causal inferences generation during reading. The reviewed studies relate individual differences in working memory capacity, evaluated with the Reading Span task, to differences in causal inferences generation, specifically connective and elaborative inferences. Directions for future research are suggested, and the importance of using natural texts in empirical research of reading comprehension is emphasized.

Keywords : Comprehension; Inferences; Individual differences.

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