The Effect Of Executive Working Memory On L2 Learners’ Syntactic Ambiguous Sentence Comprehension:An Eye-movement Research

The comprehension of syntactic ambiguous sentences,a major challenge in second language learning,is influenced by a number of factors such as language proficiency and cognitive ability.In recent years,executive working memory is getting more attention in the studies of syntactic comprehension.However,there is no unified conclusion on its exact role in syntactic comprehension,especially in L2 syntactic comprehension.In order to further explore the cognitive mechanisms and the factors of syntactic ambiguous sentence comprehension in the second language,the present study was conducted to examine the effects of executive working memory’s working memory capacity and inhibitory control ability in L2 comprehension of syntactic ambiguous sentence comprehension by combining behavioral experiments with eye-movement techniques.This study used a 2(working memory capacity: high,low)× 2(inhibitory control ability: high,low)× 2(sentence category: syntactic ambiguous sentences,non-syntactic ambiguous sentences)experiment to test the reading time and accuracy of second language learners in judging the semantics of two types of sentences(syntactic ambiguous sentences,non-syntactic ambiguous sentences).60 Chinese English learners who had passed TEM-4participated in the study,including 32 undergraduates and 28 postgraduates.The study consists of three experiments.The first experiment was a reading span test.On the basis of their performance in the reading span test,the highest 25% and the lowest 25% were assigned to high-level WMC group(15 participants)and low-level WMC group(15participants).The second was the Flanker task,in which the 30 participants who were assigned to the high-and low-level of WMC were divided into high and low groups according to the level of IC ability,with 15 participants in each group.The third experiment was a comprehension test of garden-path sentences.The sentences were divided into noun phrase area,ambiguous area,and disambiguation area,and the participants’ first pass reading time,total reading time,regression path reading time,re-reading time,and accuracy when reading different conditional sentences were recorded using an eye-movement technique.The findings were presented as follows.1)working memory capacity was found to affect the learners’ comprehension of syntactic ambiguous sentences in both immediate and non-immediate processing.The two groups differed significantly in both reading time and comprehension.2)In terms of reading time and comprehension,individuals with higher inhibitory control ability were able to inhibit the interference of irrelevant information more effectively and show more efficiency in the comprehension.3)Working memory and inhibitory control were significantly and positively correlated,which jointly contributed to the comprehension of syntactic ambiguous sentences.This study sheds light on the influence of the two core components of executive working memory on the comprehension of syntactic ambiguous sentences by Chinese English learners,it not only broadens the research field of the relationship between executive working memory and comprehension of syntactic ambiguity sentences,but also provides important implications for second language acquisition.