ABSTRACT. Ninety undergraduates were randomly assigned to a topic by medium condition and read two passages (print and digital). While reading in print, they wore a GoPro to document their location in the text. When reading digitally, data were recorded using Screen Capture technology. Participants were given comprehension questions. Participants spent more time in the print text and performed better, but believed to do better when reading digitally.

ABSTRACT. This study examined K-12 teachers' use of metacognitive modeling as they taught comprehension of multimodal texts. Teachers designed and implemented two think-aloud lessons in which they taught various comprehension strategies through metacognitive modeling. Results of the study reveal that teachers found it difficult to employ metacognitive thinking while they read, and they also found it challenging to use language to describe their cognitive thinking.

ABSTRACT. The current study analyzes the role of visuals in multiple document learning and how these representations are processed. The results of this study indicate that there is evidence that learners attend more closely to text than to visual documents, and that text and visuals stimulate different responses in learners. Taken together, these findings support the need to consider the types of documents used, and how those documents are attended to during multiple documents tasks.

ABSTRACT. We examined the influence of learners’ political identity on their understanding of a complex scientific graphic. We randomly assigned participants to view one of three versions of the “Hockey Stick” graph – one depicting global temperature change (original), housing price change (modification 1), or newly diagnosed cases of autism (modification 2). Results revealed that only when the graph depicted climate change, participants’ political identity was predictive of how they interpreted changes in the data.

ABSTRACT. While the literature on reading comprehension has extensively documented the relation between learners’ strategy use and comprehension, less is known about this relation when students attempt to comprehend non-text-based information. Two studies examine the relation between the strategies undergraduates use during video viewing and comprehension and integration. Strategies identified included those associated with navigation (e.g., rewinding), comprehension (e.g., defining vocabulary), and recording (e.g., note-taking). While strategy use overall, was limited, it was associated with performance.

ABSTRACT. Reading comprehension is supported by language-specific and domain-general skills. However, comprehension arises from inference processes that construct coherent mental models. Differences in language-specific and domain-general skills account for variability in both inference processes and comprehension. However, little is known regarding the relationships between reader skills, inference processes, and comprehension. The goal of this study was to examine these relationships. The results suggest the impact of reader skills on comprehension is partially mediated by effective inferencing.

ABSTRACT. In two experiments we examined the time course of local (recent text) and global (centrality) influences on reading words in texts. Results from ERP recordings indicate local lexical-semantic binding processes dominate at the initial words across a sentence boundary and centrality influences emerging at the end of the sentence. Indicators of meaning congruence (N400) and memory-based integration (P600) show the dual influences of local and global text structure in integrating word meanings with text meanings.

ABSTRACT. This study investigated the degree to which dynamical analyses of students’ self-explanations of texts while reading were reflective of their levels of comprehension. Students (n=142) self-explained and answered comprehension questions about a science text. Recurrence Quantification Analysis was used to analyze the patterns of words in students’ self-explanations. Recurrence indices were significantly related to students’ comprehension at both surface- and deep levels. Our results point toward the important role of dynamics in understanding comprehension processes.

ABSTRACT. This study investigated the role of two forms of background knowledge, domain-general and topic-specific, on students’ ability to comprehend and learn from science texts. High school students completed a pretest, posttest, and two background knowledge assessments in the context of the Global, Integrated, Scenario-based Assessment on Ecology. Results suggest an interactive effect of the knowledge types such that readers with high domain-general knowledge, but low topic-specific knowledge improve most from pretest to posttest.

ABSTRACT. The present study explored the extent that motivation for reading is related to inference generation. Community college students were administered the reading strategy assessment tool (RSAT) to provide a measure of the extent that readers generated bridging and elaborative inferences. Immediately after reading, they provided self report assessments of their motivation for reading while taking RSAT. Motivation was correlated with bridging, but not elaborative inferences. The results are discussed in terms of theories of comprehension.

ABSTRACT. The presence of irrelevant information in expository text can harm comprehension. This study examined the role of a post-reading sketching task for reducing the negative impact of seductive details on learning and recall. Results indicated that while sketching did not improve conceptual recall, it did reduce seductive recall. Students who wrote post-reading summaries recalled the most core concepts. These results inform how to support learning from naturalistic science text in spite of distracting details.

ABSTRACT. We examined the effects of task-relevance on postural micromovements during expository text reading. The text was presented on a screen (Experiment 1) or on a hand-held tablet (Experiment 2) while participants’ eye movements and postural micromovements were recorded. After reading, a free recall was collected. Preliminary results show that head-to-screen distance and the speed of postural micromovements were smaller during reading of task-relevant than irrelevant sentences, and these measures correlated with recall performance.

ABSTRACT. We examined the role of situation model building in first (L1) and second (L2) language reading comprehension in 4th grade. Children produced a similarity map of central concepts in an expository text. Situation model building was assessed by comparing the pathfinder-scaled concept maps to an expert model. L1 and L2 readers did not differ in the quality of their situation models. Situation model building predicted reading comprehension above other cognitive and linguistic predictors.

ABSTRACT. Detection of contradictions between texts and graphs requires inferences about variable relationships described in each representation and comparisons between the representations. The reported studies investigated the generation and recognition of these inferences (Study 1) and the application of that skill to detecting contradictions between representations (Study 2). Findings demonstrate participants’ abilities to: generate and select appropriate inferences from text and graph and detect contradictions between representations at rates above chance, especially inferences are explicitly stated.

ABSTRACT. We examined how different types of inconsistencies (with prior text or background knowledge) are processed during reading. We measured reading times while participants read experimental texts that contained inconsistencies. Inconsistencies with either background knowledge or prior text resulted in slower reading of target sentences, but only inconsistencies with background knowledge interacted with working memory. Moreover, only the latter resulted in slower reading of spill-over sentences. This suggests that different types of inconsistencies are processed differently.

ABSTRACT. Four eye-tracking studies examined how readers resolve the meaning of irony, whether processing of irony differs from the processing of lies and metaphors, and are individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) and processing emotions related to the processing of irony. The results show that ironic utterances are reread more in comparison to literal utterances, lies, and metaphors; and individual differences in WMC and ability to process emotions affect the time-course of resolving irony.

ABSTRACT. To understand the relation between information processing and reading skill, we measured the functioning of the direct- and indirect-pathways in the brain, which result in net excitation or inhibition of signals traveling to prefrontal cortex, using the Probabilistic-Stimulus-Selection (PSS) task. Performance on the PSS, Simon task, 3-back, and Automated-Reading-Span tasks were correlated with reading skill. Results from correlation and linear regression analyses suggest that basic inhibitory mechanisms explain considerable variability in reading skill.

ABSTRACT. We examined whether background knowledge (BK) and reading comprehension (RC) were separate factors and whether the type of type of BK impacts how students comprehend texts at different levels of depth. Performance on a scenario- based assessment revealed that BK and RC were separable factors and that the type of BK was differentially predictive of the level of depth of understanding. Conceptual BK was more predictive of understanding than basic BK, particularly for inference items

ABSTRACT. We investigated how background knowledge (BK) was related to reading comprehension (RC). We proposed the knowledge threshold hypothesis—below a certain knowledge level BK was weakly related to RC, and RC performance was limited. This was confirmed by broken-line regression. BK only positively predicted RC above a BK threshold. Item analysis showed that BK that was more critical to a topic was more predictive of students’ knowledge threshold status.

ABSTRACT. This study examines adolescents’ epistemic processes during online reading. High and low performers on the same online reading task were compared, regarding their verbal reports of epistemic processing as well as individual difference factors. The results indicate that high-performing readers engaged in more sophisticated epistemic processes, as compared to their less-performing peers. Proficiency in source judgment and self-monitoring of knowledge-seeking processes was critical to question generation, beyond topic knowledge, print skills, and self-perceived epistemic beliefs.

ABSTRACT. Now more than ever, understanding written discourse involves more than decoding and constructing a coherent representation of a text. The time of gatekeepers and assumed reliability is gone and readers are confronted with an overabundance of written information, challenging their attentional resources and coherence-building strategies. As readers, we are routinely making decisions about whether to read, what to read, how to read as well as what to believe, what to integrate or not to integrate into our knowledge representations. In this talk, I present our new framework, RESOLV (REading as Problem SOLVing) (Britt, Rouet, & Durik, in press), that lays out a range of resources, representations and decisions involved in reading. RESOLV attempts to describe reading comprehension in terms of how a reader adopts goals within a particular situation and how these goals guide the kind of processing decisions people must make in today’s ubiquitous and complex reading environments.

ABSTRACT. Digital forms of literacy are reshaping the construct of reading comprehension in the 21st century, yet associated assessment designs have remained largely unchanged. Hence, traditional assessment designs may be inadequate for addressing this changing construct. In this study we compare the results from a scenario-based assessment (SBA) and two traditional measures of comprehension. We argue that the SBA encapsulates the traditional construct of comprehension while expanding the scope to include facets afforded by digital assessment.

ABSTRACT. Assessment of Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) is time-intensive for teachers. We report on Moby.Read – a fully automated, self-administered prototype, developed to improve ORF measurement. Young students self-administer Moby.Read on a tablet computer, then on-board automated speech processing technology scores oral reading performances and passage retellings. On-site pilot studies of Moby.Read with 99 students across four schools indicate Moby.Read scores correlate highly with traditional ORF assessments, and students overwhelmingly prefer Moby.Read to teacher-administered reading tests.

ABSTRACT. Cloze has never been widely accepted as a valid measure of text comprehension. We address the problems previously reported in literature and introduce an improved procedure: the HyTeC-cloze. The procedure was evaluated using data collected among 2855 Dutch secondary school students. The procedure matches and sometimes outperforms standardized tests in validity and reliability. Its sensitivity to differences between texts, text versions and readers make the procedure an appealing method for experimental and correlational studies.

ABSTRACT. We examined whether placing background knowledge (BK) items before or after four deep comprehension assessments (SBAs) affected relationships with students’ understanding. Our results showed BK performance better predicted comprehension scores when BK items appeared after the SBAs and when controlling for foundational reading ability compared to when BK items appeared before the SBAs, representing an order effect. This result has implications for measuring student learning in the context of a comprehension and BK assessment.

ABSTRACT. Successful learning in multiple-document inquiry tasks requires coordination of various complex cognitive skills. A virtual world platform was designed to capture evidence of students’ proficiency with multiple-source inquiry; an extended scenario-based task using this platform was pre-tested with 15 middle school students using a think-aloud methodology. Results indicated that the virtual world yields quantitative differences in students’ performance, particularly on multiple-text integration and information search and retrieval activities, while critical source evaluations differed qualitatively.

ABSTRACT. New assessments such as conversation-based assessments (CBA) are utilizing natural language conversational interactions to better assess students’ knowledge and skills. However, CBAs are currently under utilizing students’ natural language responses in that only keywords and phrases are being used for assessment. In the present research we conducted an initial exploration of the utility of evaluating students’ communication skills by investigating the linguistic features (e.g., word complexity, syntactic complexity) of their natural language responses.

ABSTRACT. This study analyzed scientific explanations that students constructed based on data collected during science inquiry in Inq-ITS. Fine-grained analyses for scientific contents were performed to unpack the specific difficulties that students had with completing a Claim-Evidence-Reasoning task. Results showed that the majority of students had difficulties in: stating the conditions that were changed for a controlled target variable, using sufficient data to support claims, and linking scientific principles and data to claims. Implications are discussed.

ABSTRACT. We examined the role of Knowledge of Results (KR) and Elaborated Feedback (EF) on learning from a text, while manipulating text availability and considering students’ prior knowledge. Secondary-school students read a scientific text and answered multiple-choice questions on Read&Learn. After each question, students may access EF, though only half of them got KR feedback. Having the text unavailable and knowing the wrong response triggered access to EF; students’ prior knowledge and EF affected students’ performance.

ABSTRACT. English language learners (ELLs) continue to be one of the fastest growing subpopulations in US schools. To address the needs of ELLs, the Language Muse Activity PaletteTM (Palette) has been developed. The aim of the IES-funded project is to develop a technology-rich, instructional program to improve ELL outcomes in understanding of content-area texts, and language skills development. In this study, we report results of two studies of the Palette with teachers and students in schools.

ABSTRACT. This study uses correlation mining to investigate relationships between the linguistic properties of math problems and student outcomes. We find that linguistic properties associated with boredom were negatively associated with engaged concentration, an emotion which is boredom’s inverse in terms of activation (intensity of emotion) and valence (positivity of emotion). However, few of the linguistic features associated with gaming the system correlated with poorer moment-by-moment-learning. These findings have potential implications for mathematics problem design.

ABSTRACT. Undergraduate students at the University of New Haven read one version of 12 short (approximately 4 sentences). One version of the text contained a taboo word while the other contained a neutral word. The neutral word was matched for length and frequency to the taboo word. Participants then recalled the texts. Texts with taboo words were better recalled than those with the neutral words.

ABSTRACT. This study examined the influences of emotion, reading goals, and cohesion when writing-aloud about expository science texts. Participants induced to feel positive emotions generated more inferences and demonstrated increased paraphrasing and comprehension for less cohesive texts. Participants induced to feel negative emotions demonstrated increased paraphrasing for more cohesive text, but non-coherence processes for less cohesive text. Reading for study increased text rehearsal and recall. The results demonstrate the importance of considering complex interactions in comprehension.

ABSTRACT. The authors examined how reading expository text on different reading mediums impacts comprehension of skilled- and less-skilled readers. Participants read two expository texts on paper, a computer or an iPad while reading times and free recall were measured. Skilled readers demonstrated longer reading times in the digital medium conditions and higher recall for text details, whereas less-skilled readers maintained equal reading times in all conditions but showed lower recall in the digital medium conditions.

ABSTRACT. Our study examines how idioms are represented in memory using a text repetition method. Participants read passages containing an idiom (walk in the park) twice in succession. The idiom was repeated during the second reading or replaced with an idiom with a similar meaning (piece of cake). Results showed slightly larger repetition effects for repeated idioms than for idiom synonyms, suggesting that figurative phrases support repetition effects in the same way as individual words.

ABSTRACT. The effect of vocabulary difficulty on text comprehension and text processing was investigated in a strictly controlled cloze study (PPN=786) and an eye-tracking study (PPN=181). Secondary school students enrolled in different levels of the Dutch school system participated in the experiments. Comprehension scores increased and reading times decreased when vocabulary was easier but the effects were small. Higher-level students read faster and scored higher on comprehension than lower-level students. Education level interacted with vocabulary difficulty.

ABSTRACT. Does word identification play a role on young skilled readers’ performance on different reading literacy tasks? Does the readers’ strategic processing vary depending on different reading literacy tasks? We aimed at answering these two questions with a large sample of freshmen (979 students). We confirmed that word identification played a role on the three reading literacy situations tested and the variation of strategic processing depending on the reading situation.

ABSTRACT. Previous research has demonstrated that antecedent retrieval is influenced by memory-based factors such as elaboration, distance, and causality. We examined whether a new variable, unexpectedness, also influences this process. Participants read passages containing an antecedent and a same-category alternate for an anaphor; the alternate was either expected in the passage context or unexpected. Probe response times demonstrated that expectedness of the alternate influenced antecedent retrieval. These findings have implications for current models of discourse comprehension.

ABSTRACT. Two sentence completion tasks (written: n=24, spoken: n=36) were conducted to examine the production of referential forms in Vietnamese under (i) topicality and (ii) modality (i.e. spoken vs. written) effects. Results show effects of modality on referents’ likelihood-of mention and on referential forms choices. Modality also influences these choices (i.e. higher use of NPs in spoken vs. written), emphasizing that prior findings about pronouns being more common in spoken language may be epiphenomenal.

ABSTRACT. Research has shown that frustration and confusion are two of the most commonly occurring emotions during learning. The current study sought to explore any linguistic differences that exist between confusion and frustration. Computational linguistic analyses revealed differences in the characteristics between these two learning-centered emotions.

ABSTRACT. We investigated differential effects of explaining a text to oneself compared to a peer. No differences were observed between comprehension scores of students in “self-explain” and “other-explain” conditions. However, linguistic analyses highlighted significant differences in the characteristics of generated explanations. Students who explained to their peers used more conceptually general verbs, and words that were more semantically related. This suggests that audience may play an important role in the types of explanations generated during reading.

ABSTRACT. Text comprehensibility is an important predictor of the emotions during reading. Hundreds of instruments are available, designed to measure comprehensibility (Benjamin, 2012). Yet it is unknown which instrument assesses comprehensibility best. An experimental study compared the prognostic validity of five instruments for German texts. Among other results, it showed correlations of r = .50 between positive emotions and the Reading-Ease-Formula and .83 between positive emotions and subjective comprehensibility in the questionnaire from Friedrich (in press).

ABSTRACT. The present study examined the relationship between the seemingly similar underlying processes (e.g., initial faulty representations, restructuring) involved in comprehending garden path sentences and solving creative problems. Partial correlations showed that when the variance of control sentence accuracy was controlled, creative problem solving accuracy significantly predicted garden path sentence comprehension but not control sentence comprehension. These results suggest that individuals may draw on similar processes to interpret ambiguous language and solve creative problems.

ABSTRACT. In this study, we examine discourse produced during collaborative problem solving. Results of linear mixed effects models demonstrate that the total number of voices (i.e., semantic chains of related words representing separate topics in discourse) is a significant predictor of creativity. However, other indices designed to measure collaboration among participants (e.g., blending of voices between participants) were not significant predictors, suggesting that different levels of collaboration did not affect the generation of creative solutions.

ABSTRACT. The goal of this study was to evaluate how students’ beliefs about their academic ability were related to science knowledge, and if their beliefs specific to science were more impactful than their general academic beliefs. We found that student’s beliefs on their science ability added sizable predictions to their science knowledge beyond general academic beliefs. Additionally, evidence suggests that students’ science beliefs were more important for deeper conceptual knowledge than basic knowledge.

ABSTRACT. This study examined the impact of using a 2nd-person pronoun (‘you’) or a 3rd-person pronoun (‘he’, ‘she’) to describe a protagonist as a function of the gender of the reader. Using ‘you’ led to increase the number of verbs recalled relating to the protagonist, in women relative to men. Women also recalled more action verbs when the protagonist was referred to by ‘he’ and more feeling verbs when the protagonist was referred to by ‘she’.

ABSTRACT. This research synthesis describes the reading comprehension strategies employed in accessing, comprehending, and using multiple sources online. In the last two decades, there has been burgeoning research on the strategies used in the reading of multiple texts, traditional and nontraditional texts, and combinations thereof. The purpose of this literature review is to provide a detailed accounting of these strategies, used by successful readers in complex, digital multi-text environments.

ABSTRACT. The first aim of this experiment was to study the role of discourse focus on children’s pronoun resolution in short texts. The second aim was to test the relation between sensitivity to the discourse focus and reading comprehension level. A self-paced reading paradigm was used. Analyses showed that children - like adults - are sensitive to the discourse focus during reading, and this sensitivity to the focus is related to reading comprehension in children.

ABSTRACT. The Relevance principle (Sperber & Wilson 1986/1995) is argued to account for perceptions of textual coherence. Giora (1985/1997) disputes this reductive view, arguing that coherent texts meet formal requirements. Wilson (1998) replies that structure is extraneous to a coherence account. A solution to the dispute is argued to lie in a distinction between personal and public relevance, where interaction type is the key variable: the one-to-many interaction of public discourse optimizes relevance through conventional structure.

ABSTRACT. This project’s purpose was to work with adult learners, educators and field experts in one state to better understand how they teach reading in order to design, develop and pilot an evidence-based program for their use. Data from a state-wide survey of adult educators and in-depth interviews of key leaders were compared with results from recent research. Results reveal opportunities to introduce a more balanced approach to reading instruction than what is presently used.

ABSTRACT. The first part discusses the analysis of language metafunctions of the implicit knowledge in relation to the genre of any proposed text.Integration of related summary writing instructions combined with the SFL framework to further apply the usage of suggested the model. Finally, the paper presented practical forms based one the suggested model in activities which are used in contexts and compared with courses in the field. this shows the gaps of existed activities.

ABSTRACT. We examined the extent to which Deaf adults rely on visual intonation displayed through facial movements in sign language when determining whether a signer is using sarcasm versus literal language. Participants watched a series of 12 videos narrated by a Deaf signer. The importance of visual intonation was measured by manipulating how much of the signer’s face was visible. Results showed that participants understood sarcasm best when they could see the signer’s eyes.

ABSTRACT. This study explores the discourse that supports students in forming verbal generalizations in one Grade 4 classroom. By analyzing the student-teacher discourse in ten teaching segments, we coded for purpose of statement, as well as technique for fulfilling the purpose. We identified sixteen statements of generalization. The data reveal that students’ generalizations are linked to discursive moves associated with the purpose of extending and the techniques of requesting for justification and justifying.

ABSTRACT. Previous research has demonstrated that readers are not consistently disrupted by spatial inconsistencies unless spatial information is made more accessible (Smith & O’Brien, 2012). The current experiments attempted to increase the availability, and in turn the accessibility, of spatial information by raising the reader’s coherence threshold. The results of four experiments demonstrated that the processing effects associated with spatial inconsistencies are dependent upon the strength and availability of spatial information in memory.

ABSTRACT. We designed an experiment to test the role of searching the text after knowledge of results (KR) feedback and elaborated feedback (EF) orienting learners toward the correct response (EFcorrect) or towards the mistake (EFmistake) when students have a second attempt to answer low-and high-level questions in learning science. Results show that the three feedbacks are equally effective for low-level questions, though EFmistake is more effective for high-level questions. Processing data are presented.

ABSTRACT. We examined humans’ preference for teleological (purpose-driven) explanations of natural phenomena. For example, “earthworms tunnel underground in order to aerate the soil” is incorrect: Earthworms do not intentionally aerate the soil. However, such sentences are often accepted as true. We investigated what whether contextual factors influence the likelihood of over-attributing intentionality. Our results suggest that a preceding “why” question does not facilitate people’s ability to recognize false teleological explanations, contrary to predictions.

ABSTRACT. The current experiments examined the circumstances in which readers utilize source credibility information. A consistent finding has been that readers only rely on source information if the reader was explicitly instructed to both attend and use that information. The current experiments provided evidence that non-credible source information could be sufficiently elaborated on in the text (i.e., through online methodologies) so that the information from the non-credible source had less of an influence on moment-to-moment processing.

ABSTRACT. We investigated how students represent scientific causal explanations from reading. In two studies, we tested whether a tutorial that provides goals and strategies for achieving those goals (task model) represent the content more completely. College students given the tutorial correctly recalled and identified more elements of the explanation than those not given the tutorial. These results suggest that brief task model training can lead to stronger representations of science explanations.

ABSTRACT. The inaccurate statements that appear in stories can problematically influence readers’ post-reading decisions. We are interested in whether these problematic consequences depend upon matches/mismatches between readers’ and story protagonists’ perspectives. Similarities might encourage readers to rely on characters’ statements, or perhaps make readers more evaluative of that content. We began by specifically examining mismatches of political identity. Inaccurate content was generally influential regardless of the degree of mismatch between readers’ and characters’ political affiliations.

ABSTRACT. Within the RI-Val Model, both the reader’s general world knowledge and contextual information held in the reader’s episodic memory trace compete to dominate validation during reading. General world knowledge typically dominates the process. However, contextual information can dominate validation when bolstered through elaboration. The results of this experiment demonstrated that while skilled readers can make use of contextual elaborations during validation, less-skilled readers cannot and general world knowledge continues to dominate validation.

ABSTRACT. Policy argumentation is an important form of democratic participation, and in schools, students are often asked to write essays about policy issues. In the current study, we examine students’ use of strategies to evaluate policy arguments in a high-stakes writing assessment. The preliminary results show that high quality evaluations focused on justifying the causal relationship from the proposed plan to the goal, and critiqued multiple aspects of the argument.

ABSTRACT. This study used Generalizability Theory to examine stability of comprehension assessments across response formats and passage types. Fourth graders (N=79) read six passages aloud and completed a comprehension test. Three response formats (open ended, multiple choice, retell) and two passage types (narrative, expository) were randomized and counterbalanced across students. Results indicated considerable variance owed to response format over passage type or individual. Additionally, number of administrations needed to achieve score stability varied by response format.

ABSTRACT. The ability to successfully manage interference has been shown to be important for skilled second-language (L2) reading. The current study investigated the hypothesis that this relation is driven by cross-linguistic interference. We found that the amount of interference experienced between first-language (L1) and L2 was negatively related to L2 reading ability. When indices of L1 proficiency, cross-linguistic priming, and non-linguistic interference management were entered simultaneously, non-linguistic interference management was the strongest predictor of cross-linguistic interference.

ABSTRACT. This study investigated interrelations between the general public’s epistemic beliefs, prior conceptions of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and learning about ASD treatments. Participants reported their beliefs regarding how claims about ASD are justified, prior knowledge, and read texts describing ASD treatments (supported or unsupported by evidence). For each, participants rated its comprehensibility, believability, credibility, and their approval and recommendation. Findings show epistemic justification and ASD (mis)conceptions differentially predicted recommendations for treatment of various evidentiary support.

ABSTRACT. We examined whether genre expectations and text genre (fiction, nonfiction) influence participants’ empathy, transportation, and comprehension. The results showed that empathy was influenced by genre expectations, whereas transportation was influenced by text genre; there were no effects on comprehension. Specifically, participants with a fiction expectation reported higher empathy after reading, whereas participants with a nonfiction expectation reported lower empathy after reading. Interestingly, participants who read nonfiction reported significantly higher transportation than participants who read fiction.

ABSTRACT. We investigated online sentence processing in beginning first language (L1) and second language (L2) readers (8-10 years). By means of eye-tracking, we measured children’s processing times of two-clause sentences including a causal content relation. We investigated the interplay between text-related factors (i.e., coherence marking and linear order of clauses) and child-related factors (i.e., language background and grammar knowledge). The results showed that coherence marking and individual differences in grammar knowledge influenced L2 children’s processing times.

ABSTRACT. This study investigates second language (L2) reading and writing in relation to first language (L1) literacy, L2 vocabulary knowledge, L2 reading and writing strategy use, test familiarity, majors, and L2 learning experience. Results support L1-L2 reading transfer, moderate effects of L2 vocabulary on L1-L2 writing transfer, and mediated effects of L2 vocabulary on L2 reading-writing relationships. Path analysis indicated 54.2% and 48.9% of the variance in L2 reading and L2 writing, respectively, were explained.

ABSTRACT. This study explores and verifies how many emotional words and collocations only appear in texts of a single polarity. This study also proposes a simple predicting method which utilizes emotional collocations to determine the polarity of Chinese short texts. First finding is that only using emotional words to predict the polarity of a Chinese short text is unreasonable. Second, this study have extracted many emotional collocations. The accuracy of the proposed predicting model is satisfactory.

ABSTRACT. This experimental pre-posttest study investigated the impact of seven commercial speed reading trainings on reading times and reading comprehension. Contrary to predictions derived from the cognitive psychology of reading, four of the seven trainings increased reading speed without compromising comprehension. However, these effects were not associated with more efficient basic reading processes on the word and the sentence level. Future studies should examine the mechanisms that account for the effectiveness of speed reading trainings.

ABSTRACT. Novice readers struggle to construct the interpretive inferences necessary for successful literary comprehension. This experiment tested three reading instructions (rules of notice, rules of signification, combined) that provided information about the literary conventions that experts use when interpreting literary works. Novices generated more interpretive inferences when provided both rules of notice and rules of signification information than if only the rules of notice were provided. Attention to language in the text mediated this effect.