Background: Immersive virtual reality (IVR) is a new technology that could motivate learners, but also could contain distracting elements that increase cognitive demands on learners. In contrast, learning with conventional media, such as a narrated slideshow could be less motivating, but also less distracting. Objectives: This experiment…

In multimedia learning, there is a lot of new information that learners are exposed to, making it a cognitively intensive process. Poorly-designed multimedia lessons can introduce distractions that must be dealt with by the learner. However, learners do not all share the same skill at managing incoming information or holding capacity, which could…

It is acknowledged the need for interventions to improve reading comprehension and its cognitive underpinnings, such as executive functions. The present study implemented a computerized cognitive training for enhancing reading comprehension in primary school children through EF activities embedded in text comprehension exercises. 263 third and…

The study investigated the effect of task complexity (TC) on second language (L2) learners' affective responses and writing performance and how these were modulated by cognitive and affective individual difference (ID) factors. A total of 412 Chinese 8th-grade English-as-a-foreign-language learners completed a working memory (WM) test, a scale…

Successful text comprehension requires readers to engage in a number of coherence-building processes. This study examined how analyzing the cohesion of students 'constructed responses can be used to evaluate these coherence-building processes and the extent to which they vary across readers' individual differences and across types of texts. We…

Relatively late mastery of scalar implicatures has been suggested to correlate with children's immature processing capacities, such as their limited working memory. Yet, many studies that tested for a link between children's working memory and their computation of scalar implicatures have failed to find any correlation. One possible reason is that…

In this study, I sought to investigate whether visuospatial working memory (VWM) explains individual differences in reading fluency growth. One hundred and thirty Japanese junior and senior high school students were administered the Mr. Peanut and reversed Corsi tasks, respectively as measures of VWM, followed by three waves of reading fluency…

The research on interpreting aptitude has focused on the abilities, skills and personal traits of individuals in order to predict their future interpreting performance. However, an important variable between the personal characteristics and success of trainee interpreters in interpreter training, which is instructional practices, is overlooked.…

Rational number understanding is a critical building block for success in more advanced mathematics; however, how rational number magnitudes are conceptualized is not fully understood. In the current study, we used a dual-task working memory (WM) interference paradigm to investigate the dominant type of strategy (i.e., requiring verbal WM…

This study investigated whether task complexity may affect L2 speaking performance as predicted by the Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2011), and whether the effect of task complexity may interact with individual differences in working memory capacity. A total of twenty Korean advanced-level EFL learners performed two separate picture description…