阅读理解的风景模型:整合的观点

阅读理解是构建篇章有效而连贯的心理表征的过程,研究者提出了许多模型,分别去解释阅读结果的心理表征和阅读的加工过程.风景模型则同时考虑了阅读的加工过程与心理表征,并描述了二者之间的动态、交互作用,整合了以往的理论模型.大量实验证据验证了风景模型的心理真实性,并发现它可以应用到各种阅读情景中.     

Degree of Language Experience Modulates Visual Attention to Visible Speech and Iconic Gestures During Clear and Degraded Speech Comprehension

Visual information conveyed by iconic hand gestures and visible speech can enhance speech comprehension under adverse listening conditions for both native and non‐native listeners. However, how a listener allocates visual attention to these articulators during speech comprehension is unknown. We used eye‐tracking to investigate whether and how native and highly proficient non‐native listeners of Dutch allocated overt eye gaze to visible speech and gestures during clear and degraded speech comprehension. Participants watched video clips of an actress uttering a clear or degraded (6‐band noise‐vocoded) action verb while performing a gesture or not, and were asked to indicate the word they heard in a cued‐recall task. Gestural enhancement was the largest (i.e., a relative reduction in reaction time cost) when speech was degraded for all listeners, but it was stronger for native listeners. Both native and non‐native listeners mostly gazed at the face during comprehension, but non‐native listeners gazed more often at gestures than native listeners. However, only native but not non‐native listeners' gaze allocation to gestures predicted gestural benefit during degraded speech comprehension. We conclude that non‐native listeners might gaze at gesture more as it might be more challenging for non‐native listeners to resolve the degraded auditory cues and couple those cues to phonological information that is conveyed by visible speech. This diminished phonological knowledge might hinder the use of semantic information that is conveyed by gestures for non‐native compared to native listeners. Our results demonstrate that the degree of language experience impacts overt visual attention to visual articulators, resulting in different visual benefits for native versus non‐native listeners.     

Perceiving verbal and vocal emotions in a second language

Emotional inferences from speech require the integration of verbal and vocal emotional expressions. We asked whether this integration is comparable when listeners are exposed to their native language and when they listen to a language learned later in life. To this end, we presented native and non-native listeners with positive, neutral and negative words that were spoken with a happy, neutral or sad tone of voice. In two separate tasks, participants judged word valence and ignored tone of voice or judged emotional tone of voice and ignored word valence. While native listeners outperformed non-native listeners in the word valence task, performance was comparable in the voice task. More importantly, both native and non-native listeners responded faster and more accurately when verbal and vocal emotional expressions were congruent as compared to when they were incongruent. Given that the size of the latter effect did not differ as a function of language proficiency, one can conclude that the integration of verbal and vocal emotional expressions occurs as readily in one's second language as it does in one's native language.     

Reading and writing difficulties do not always occur as the researcher expects

Making a prognosis about reading and learning difficulties is a tricky business, even if a large array of relevant variables is taken into account. The present article discusses such an endeavour, on the basis of a longitudinal four-year study which started with an orthodox intervention on linguistic awareness. However, after initial success, new groups of reading, writing and math disabled children were identified in the course of years. Membership of these groups could not always be predicted on the basis of extensive cognitive diagnostics performed during the preschool. Rather, the pupil’s adaptive behaviour while coping with the demands of school work emerges as an important prognostic factor. This was particularly evident in an interaction combining math and reading comprehension in grade 3.     

Adolescent reading skill and engagement with digital and traditional literacies as predictors of reading comprehension

This study investigates the concurrent predictors of adolescent reading comprehension (literal, inferential) for fiction and non‐fiction texts. Predictors were examined from the cognitive (word identification, reading fluency), psychological (gender), and ecological (print exposure) domains. Print exposure to traditional and digital texts was surveyed using a diary method of reading habits. A cross‐sectional sample of 312 students in early (11–13 years) or middle adolescence (14–15 years) participated from a range of SES backgrounds. Word identification emerged as a strong predictor of reading comprehension across adolescence and text genres. Gender effects favouring female students were evident for reading frequency but not for reading skill itself. Reading habits also differed, and comprehension advantages were observed among females for fiction and males for non‐fiction. Age effects emerged for reading frequency, which was lower in middle adolescence. Although more time was spent on digital than on traditional texts, traditional extended text reading was the only reading habit to predict inference‐making in comprehension and to distinguish skilled from less skilled comprehenders. The theoretical and educational implications of these results are discussed.     

Joint Book Reading and Receptive Vocabulary: A Parallel Process Model

The purpose of the present study was to understand the reciprocal, bidirectional longitudinal relation between joint book reading and English receptive vocabulary. To address the research goals, a nationally representative sample of Head Start children, the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (2003 cohort), was used for analysis. The children were aged 3–4 years at programme entry. The mothers' average age at programme entry was 39 years old. A parallel process model was utilized to examine the growth factors of joint book reading and receptive vocabulary in parallel. Three significant findings emerged: (1) initial levels of English receptive vocabulary and joint book reading positively covaried; (2) English receptive vocabulary and joint book reading were positively and reciprocally related to each other; and (3) slopes for joint book reading and English receptive vocabulary negatively covaried. Results suggest that joint book reading can support and scaffold Head Start children's English receptive vocabulary. Reciprocally, Head Start children's English receptive vocabulary appears to predict the extent to which they engage in joint book reading at home. Moreover, the frequency of joint book reading decreases as the children demonstrate higher levels of English receptive vocabulary. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of contextual diversity on semantic decision and reading aloud: evidence from a word learning study in English as a second language / Efectos de la diversidad contextual en la decisión semántica y la lectura en voz alta: evidencia de un estudio de aprendizaje de palabras en inglés como segundo idioma

This experiment investigated contextual diversity effects on novel word learning in English as a second language (L2). A group of advanced English speakers, whose native language was Spanish, participated in the study. Participants learned the meaning of real but obscure words that were embedded in either two or 12 different sentences and learned over two days (frequency of exposure was kept constant). On day three, participants were tested using reading aloud and semantic decision tasks. The results showed that participants learned the meaning of words in both conditions fairly well as revealed by their accuracy in the semantic decision task. However, words experienced in 12 different contexts generated more accurate and faster reaction times (RTs), suggesting the acquisition of more robust semantic representations. Strikingly, reading latencies were also faster for the 12-sentence condition, which might imply that semantics has an effect on reading newly learned words in English as a second language. These results are discussed and accommodated in view of the DRC and the PDP models of single-word reading.     

Mothers' Attention‐getting Utterances During Shared Book Reading: Links to Low‐income Preschoolers' Verbal Engagement,Visual Attention,and Early Literacy

This study examined associations among low‐income mothers' use of attention‐getting utterances during shared book reading, preschoolers' verbal engagement and visual attention to reading, and their early literacy skills (N = 51). Mother–child shared book reading sessions were videotaped and coded for each utterance, including attention talk, contextualized talk, de‐contextualized talk, and print talk. Preschoolers' attention during book reading was assessed using two measures: verbal engagement by using a rating scale of preschoolers' involvement in book reading discussion and visual attention by coding visual gaze. Findings indicated that mothers' attention talk was positively associated with children's verbal engagement, while maternal print talk was associated with children's visual attention. Further, low‐level maternal print talk was associated with higher early decoding scores of children when it was accompanied with high‐level maternal attention talk. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.