Effects Of Working Memory On The Processing Of English Wh-Movement In Senior High School Students

In the literature,it is debatable whether working memory has an effect on the processing of long-distance wh-movement sentences.Some scholars think that working memory has a significant effect on wh-question processing of long-distance subject extraction and object extraction(Dussias & Pinar,2010;Lee,2010;Gregory,2015;Zhou,2017).However,other researchers think that working memory does not affect the processing of long-distance subject or object movement sentences(Juffs,2005;Hopp,2012;Penke & Wimmer,2017).At the same time,the reading span task and the operation span task are widely used in the working memory test.There is no consensus whether reading span task or the operation span task is closer to learners' real working memory(Ericsson & Kintsch,1995;Daneman & Merikle,1996;Baddeley,2003;Sanchez et al.,2010;Tse & Altarriba,2014).In Middle School,wh-movement sentences are one of the most important sentence patterns for middle school students.However,L2 learners as well as native English speakers represent three types of subject-object asymmetry: one is subject preference(Liu,2016),the other are object preference(Schachter & Yip,1990;Juffs,2005)and subject-object blending patterns(Baek,2007).In order to explore the effects of working memory on high school students' processing on wh-movement sentences and the subject-object asymmetry of high school students,the author tested 102 students from two classes of a high school in Fuqing by using the Oxford test,reading span task,operation span task and self-paced reading task.The data was analyzed by independent sample t-test and two-factor variance analysis of SPSS21.0 social science statistical software.The major results of the study are as follows:(1)The paper uses 2×2 two-factor variance analysis to analyze data with judgement accuracy being as an dependent variable,working memory and sentence type(subject and object)being as independent variable and finds that the main effect of sentence type was significant,with F(1,85)=1.140 and p =0.289;the main effect of working memory effect is notsignificant,with F(1,85)=1.140 and p=0.289;the interaction effect between working memory and sentence type is not significant,with F(1,85)=0.523 and p=0.472.These indicates that judgement accuracy is related to sentence type.Meanwhile,the mean accuracy rate of object-extraction sentences(75.24%)is higher than that of subject-extraction sentences(71.01%),which indicates that middle school students have higher accuracy in the processing of object-extraction sentences.(2)In reading span test,the reaction time on Region1 is regarded as the dependent variable.working memory(high and low)and sentence type(subject and object)are regarded as the independent variables to carry out the two-factor variance analysis.The main effect of working memory was not significant,F(1,85)=0.091,p=0.76;the main effect of sentence type was significant,F(1,85)=4.553,p=0.036 and the interaction effect between working memory and sentence type was not significant,F(1,85)=0.413,p=0.52.For both high and low working memory group,Region 1 average reaction time of subject-extraction was longer than that of object-extraction(448.73 ms vs 438.82 ms;433.75 ms vs 413.08 ms).The result shows that on-line reaction time of Region 1 is related to sentence type,and the reaction time on processing subject-extraction sentences is larger than that of object-extraction sentences,that is,object-extraction sentences are easier to process.(3)In operation span test,we also carry out 2×2 two-factor variance analysis with reading reaction time of Region1 being as the dependent variable,working memory(high and low)and the sentence type(subject and object)being as the independent variables and find that the main effect of working memory is significant,with F(1,85)=4.035 and p=0.048;the main effect of sentence type is significant,with F(1,85)=16.295 and p=0.000;the interaction effect between working memory and sentence type is significant,with F(1,85)=5.783 and p=0.018.These indicate that working memory and sentence type have significant influence on reaction time.Then,for both high and low working memory group,the average reaction time of subject-extraction sentences were larger than that of object-extraction sentences(486.703 ms vs 415.619ms;438.032 ms vs 420.035ms),indicating that processing subject-extraction sentences cost more reaction time than object-extraction sentences.Because there is a significant interaction effect between working memory and sentence type,this paper alsocarrys out a simple effect analysis.The result shows that working memory capacity has significant effect on the processing of subject-extraction sentences(p=0.002)but no significant influence on the processing of object-extraction sentences(p=0.780).The research shows:(1)The working memory capacity measured by reading span task has no significant effect on wh-movement sentences,neither subject-extraction nor object-extraction.This is consistent with the findings of Juffs(2005)and Hopp(2013),but inconsistent with Zhou(2016).(2)Working memory under the operational span task shows a significant effect on the processing of subject-extraction sentences.The result is consistent with Zhou(2016)and Atty(2019).The concrete effect is as follows: on processing of subject-extraction sentences,high working memory group costs more reaction time than that of low working memory group.(3)On the processing of wh-movement sentences,the judgment accuracy rate on object-extraction sentences is high,but the response time of on-line processing is lower than that of subject-extraction sentences.This is consistent with Dussias & Pinar(2010)and Jackson & Ven Hall(2011),but inconsistent with Liu(2016),whose research result is based on Distance-Based Theory.The above research of this paper is not only based on Generalized Theta Attachment and Minimal Attachment principle but also fits Capacity Constrained Parsing Model as well as Capacity Theory of Comprehension.Therefore,teachers ought to have a deeper understanding on Generalized Theta Attachment principle and Minimal Attachment principle,specify students' type of subject-object asymmetry and make full use of the picture-elicited comprehension task and other scientific methods or experiments,to promote the processing of long-distance wh-structure.At the same time,teachers also need to strengthen students' working memory training to expand their working memory capacity and improve their efficiency.