Background: Internet documents are characterised by their non-linear hyperlink structure, which allows for more flexible reading, at the cost of higher cognitive loads. Linear text reading comprehension skills contribute to hypertext comprehension (either directly or through its impact on navigation behaviours) but cannot fully account for its…

Background: The digitalisation of literature is proliferating, and the increasing spread of digital reading devices and the availability of digital texts is likely to make "books on screen" a lasting phenomenon, but little attention has been paid to the consequences of digitalisation for the experience of narrative fiction. While on the…

Over the last decade, embodied cognition, the idea that sensorimotor processes facilitate higher cognitive processes, has proven useful for improving children's memory for a story. In order to compare the benefits of two embodiment techniques, active experiencing (AE) and indexing, for children's memory for a story, we compared the immediate…

We examined how Planning, Attention, Simultaneous and Successive (PASS) processes predict reading comprehension in a sample of university students (Study 1) and what PASS processes distinguish adults with and without reading difficulties (Study 2). In Study 1, 128 university students were tested on Das-Naglieri Cognitive Assessment System, reading…

Chinese written language is different from alphabetic written languages in many respects, and for this reason, interest in the nature of the cognitive processes underlying Chinese reading has flourished over recent years. A number of researchers have used eye movement methodology as a measure of on-line processing to understand more about…

A latent profile analysis of 323 economically and academically at-risk adolescent and young adult learners yielded two classes: an average literacy class (92%) and a low literacy class (8%). The class profiles significantly differed in their word reading and math skills, and in their processing speeds and self-reported learning disabilities. The…

The purpose of this study was to determine if there are gender differences among elementary school-aged students in regard to the inferences they generate during reading. Fourth-grade students (130 females; 126 males) completed think-aloud tasks while reading one practice and one experimental narrative text. Females generated a larger number and a…

The effects of epistemic beliefs and text structure on cognitive processes during comprehension of scientific texts were investigated. On-line processes were measured using think-aloud (Experiment 1) and reading time (Experiment 2) methodologies. Measures of off-line comprehension, prior knowledge and epistemic beliefs were obtained. Results…

Reading span as a measure of L1 or L2 working memory capacity is shown to be related to L2 reading comprehension. Albeit limited, there is research on the relationship between both L1 and L2 reading spans and their roles in L2 reading comprehension, yet these studies take reading as a global construct rather than delving into its multi-level…

Highlights ways in which standard information processing models of language, and specifically of reading, are deficient. Deficiencies are considered under four headings: (1) theoretical rigour, (2) the interaction of different levels of information during reading; (3) the parallel nature of much of human information processing, and (4) reading…

Investigates the effect of depth of processing on second-language reading comprehension. Finds that questions which entailed shallow cognitive processing (factual ones) are easier to answer than those which entail deeper cognitive processing (generalization and inference questions). (SR)

Investigates effects of illustrations on 11-year-olds' comprehension of abstract and concrete passages. Reveals no significant effects due to the illustrations, although ability effects were found for literal, inferential, and total comprehension. (DF)

Compares the performance of good and poor readers on information processing tasks. (FL)

Reports on a study that investigated the position of text line break with respect to the phrase structure of a sentence in order to determine its effect on children's reading fluency. Concludes that line breaks within and between phrases cause less disruption when they occur near the end of a sentence. (FL)

Details a study showing that for young children, proactive semantic cues were the most helpful in reading. Reveals also that the children made miscues displaying semantic associations across cue types. (FL)