Is The Mind Wandering In Reading Affected By The Working Memory Capacity?

In the process of reading,the appearance of mind wandering makes individuals collect incomplete information or collect wrong information,thus bringing negative effects to personal life and learning.The study used the empirical sampling paradigm to research the difference of mind wandering among individuals with different working memory capacity.Study 1 adopts 2(working memory capacity: high and low)× 2(Interest: high and low)× 4(Reading process: stage 1,stage 2,stage 3,and stage 4)mixed experimental design,to explore whether the frequency of wandering in reading tasks of individuals with different working memory capacity and interest changes significantly with the reading process.The experiment took 36 college students as subjects,measured the reading span and operating span of the subjects,adopted the empirical sampling paradigm,inserted a dichotomous probe at pseudo-random during the reading process,and scored the interest,to explore the effect of working memory capacity on the frequency of mind wandering in Chinese reading situations.Study 2 adopts 2(working memory capacity: high and low)× 2(Interest: high and low)× 4(Reading process: stage 1,stage 2,stage 3,and stage 4)The mixed experimental design explored whether the degree of distraction of individuals with different working memory capacity and interest in reading tasks changed significantly with the reading process.The experiment took 32 college students as subjects,measured the reading span and operating span of the subjects,adopted the empirical sampling paradigm,inserted a continuous probe at pseudo-random during the reading process,and scored the interest,to explore the effect of working memory capacity on the degree of mind wandering in Chinese reading situations.The research conclusions are as follows:First,individuals with high working memory capacity have a significantly lower frequency of mind wandering than individuals with low working memory capacity,which supports the concept of executive control failure-focus.Second,working memory capacity is a factor that affects the degree of mind wandering in Chinese reading.Individuals with high working memory capacity have significantly lower degree of distraction than individuals with low working memory capacity,which supports the hypothesis of executive control failure-concern view and inattention level.Third,with the extension of the reading process,the degree of individual mind wandering is increasing.Fourth,the frequency and degree of mind wandering have a negative impact on reading comprehension.