The present research studied the role of the non-executive and executive components of working memory in the detection of phonological, orthographical, and grammatical spelling errors. Before performing error detection tasks, undergraduate participants completed a battery of tasks to evaluate their non-executive (verbal and visuospatial storage)…

Working possible selves--currently activated images of an ideal or feared future self--have been argued to guide one's motivation and actions. This study investigated how possible selves affect L2 learners' motivational behaviors of persistence and effort as shown in essay revision and proofreading. One hundred and twelve ESL students were…

In the present study, we examined error detection/correction during collaborative writing. Subjects were asked to identify and correct errors in two contexts: a passage written by the subject (familiar text) and a passage written by a person other than the subject (unfamiliar text). A computer program inserted errors in function words prior to the…

A handful of studies have claimed that error detection is improved by a proofreader's prior encounter with the text to be scanned for errors. In these studies, however, the beneficial effect of text familiarity on proofreading has been obtained via surface encoding tasks (prior reading or proofreading). This raises the question of whether the…

Finds that subjects were less able to detect errors in self-generated essays than in unfamiliar other-generated essays but were better able to detect errors in familiar other-generated essays than in unfamiliar ones. Finds also that the disadvantage for proofreading self-generated text is a by-product of extreme familiarity. (RS)

Compares the number and type of implanted errors corrected by high school and college subjects working on two different texts under three different conditions. Finds that the biggest stumbling block in correcting errors was not the knowledge of how to correct them, but rather a failure to detect them. (RS)