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Mind wandering in text comprehension under dual-task conditions
In two experiments, subjects responded to on-task probes while reading under dual-task conditions. The secondary task was to monitor the text for occurrences of the letter e. In Experiment 1, reading comprehension was assessed with a multiple-choice recognition test; in Experiment 2, subjects recall...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3787250/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24101909 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00682 |
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author | Dixon, Peter Li, Henry |
author_facet | Dixon, Peter Li, Henry |
author_sort | Dixon, Peter |
collection | PubMed |
description | In two experiments, subjects responded to on-task probes while reading under dual-task conditions. The secondary task was to monitor the text for occurrences of the letter e. In Experiment 1, reading comprehension was assessed with a multiple-choice recognition test; in Experiment 2, subjects recalled the text. In both experiments, the secondary task replicated the well-known “missing-letter effect” in which detection of e's was less effective for function words and the word “the.” Letter detection was also more effective when subjects were on task, but this effect did not interact with the missing-letter effect. Comprehension was assessed in both the dual-task conditions and in control single-task conditions. In the single-task conditions, both recognition (Experiment 1) and recall (Experiment 2) was better when subjects were on task, replicating previous research on mind wandering. Surprisingly, though, comprehension under dual-task conditions only showed an effect of being on task when measured with recall; there was no effect on recognition performance. Our interpretation of this pattern of results is that subjects generate responses to on-task probes on the basis of a retrospective assessment of the contents of working memory. Further, we argue that under dual-task conditions, the contents of working memory is not closely related to the reading processes required for accurate recognition performance. These conclusions have implications for models of text comprehension and for the interpretation of on-task probe responses. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3787250 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-37872502013-10-07 Mind wandering in text comprehension under dual-task conditions Dixon, Peter Li, Henry Front Psychol Psychology In two experiments, subjects responded to on-task probes while reading under dual-task conditions. The secondary task was to monitor the text for occurrences of the letter e. In Experiment 1, reading comprehension was assessed with a multiple-choice recognition test; in Experiment 2, subjects recalled the text. In both experiments, the secondary task replicated the well-known “missing-letter effect” in which detection of e's was less effective for function words and the word “the.” Letter detection was also more effective when subjects were on task, but this effect did not interact with the missing-letter effect. Comprehension was assessed in both the dual-task conditions and in control single-task conditions. In the single-task conditions, both recognition (Experiment 1) and recall (Experiment 2) was better when subjects were on task, replicating previous research on mind wandering. Surprisingly, though, comprehension under dual-task conditions only showed an effect of being on task when measured with recall; there was no effect on recognition performance. Our interpretation of this pattern of results is that subjects generate responses to on-task probes on the basis of a retrospective assessment of the contents of working memory. Further, we argue that under dual-task conditions, the contents of working memory is not closely related to the reading processes required for accurate recognition performance. These conclusions have implications for models of text comprehension and for the interpretation of on-task probe responses. Frontiers Media S.A. 2013-10-01 /pmc/articles/PMC3787250/ /pubmed/24101909 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00682 Text en Copyright © 2013 Dixon and Li. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Dixon, Peter Li, Henry Mind wandering in text comprehension under dual-task conditions |
title | Mind wandering in text comprehension under dual-task conditions |
title_full | Mind wandering in text comprehension under dual-task conditions |
title_fullStr | Mind wandering in text comprehension under dual-task conditions |
title_full_unstemmed | Mind wandering in text comprehension under dual-task conditions |
title_short | Mind wandering in text comprehension under dual-task conditions |
title_sort | mind wandering in text comprehension under dual-task conditions |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3787250/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24101909 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00682 |
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