In everyday life, humans rely on working memory (WM) processes to make sense of relationships between linguistic elements that are not linearly adjacent. For example, to understand the sentence "The dog that the cat chased is cute," we encode the referent "the dog" into WM, maintain and retrieve it after reading the verb…

A high-quality, foundational education offers lifelong benefits for young children. The problem is that working memory in pre-school-aged children is declining and could be impaired by the extraneous cognitive load imposed during engagement with screen media apps and/or preschool programs. Although the pedagogical practices associated with…

This study investigated the effects of WML and automaticity on mental addition through an examination of both task and individual characteristics within the framework of cognitive load theory. Seventy-three fourth-grade students in New York City public schools completed the Digit Span-Backward task of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for…

Researchers have investigated that different dimensions of word knowledge (breadth versus depth) may play distinct roles in second language (L2) reading comprehension. Yet, little research has addressed how learners' efficiency of accessing those dimensions of knowledge functions in their comprehension (i.e., the issue of knowledge availability…

This research examined how four different animated pedagogical agent implementations, which focus on perceptual and inquiry arousal conditions of attention as defined in Keller's ARCS model of motivational design (Keller, 2009), impact English language learners' situational interest, cognitive load, and reading comprehension in online readings…

Vocabulary knowledge is central to the process of reading comprehension (Cromely & Azevedo, 2007; Stahl & Nagy, 2005; Stanovich, 1986). The majority of our vocabulary knowledge is postulated to come from the process of incidental vocabulary acquisition (IVA) while reading (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). Prior studies have estimated an average…

The purpose of this body of work was to gain a clearer understanding of the potential cognitive factors that may contribute to Specific Language Impairment (SLI). This study attempted to simulate a performance profile of SLI in typically developing children within a grammaticality judgment task, featuring structures historically difficult (third…

The purpose of this study was to introduce an instructional technique for teaching complex tasks in physics, test its effectiveness and efficiency, and understand cognitive processes taking place in learners' minds while they are exposed to this technique. The study was based primarily on cognitive load theory (CLT). CLT determines the amount of…

Cognitive load theory (CLT) (Sweller 1988, 1998, 2010) provides us a guiding framework for designing instructional materials. CLT differentiates three subtypes of cognitive load: intrinsic, extraneous, and germane cognitive load. The three cognitive loads are theorized based on the number of simultaneously processed elements in working memory.…

This dissertation examines the cognitive processes individuals use when reading organic chemistry equations and factors that affect these processes, namely, visual complexity of chemical equations and participant characteristics (expertise, spatial ability, and working memory capacity). A six stage process model for the comprehension of organic…

This dissertation investigates processing of English and Japanese relative clause (RC) sentences by native speakers and second/foreign language (L2) learners. Particularly, the relationship between the sentence processing and individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity was examined. The main question addressed in this study is whether…