INTERACTIVE EFFECTS OF WORKING-MEMORY SPAN AND TEXT CONTEXT ON READING-COMPREHENSION AND RETRIEVAL

This study examined the effects of the interaction of working memory s pan (WMS) and assigned perspectives (contexts) on the retrieval of inf ormation from a passage under the same or alternative perspective. The effects were measured in terms of the correspondence of recalled idea s to the originally assigned perspective (encoding relevance). Control subjects were not assigned a perspective. WMS was found to be related to the amount of information recalled on each of two recall trials. C ompared to a no-context control group, the assigned context significan tly facilitated recall of corresponding information at all WMS levels. A switch in perspective on the second recall trial led to increased r ecall of new ideas for readers at all WMS levels. The most important f inding, however, was that unlike the high and medium WMS groups, the l ow WMS group omitted a significantly larger number of encoding-relevan t ideas on the second recall trial, compared to the number produced on the first recall trial. The implications of these findings for practi ces of providing contexts in reading comprehension and in test adminis tration were noted. The findings provide support for the premises of W MS capacity and selective attention theories.