A Study of the Effects of Working Memory Capacity on Chinese EFL Learners' Thematic Inferential Processing

This experiment was designed to explore the effects of working memory capacity to Chinese EFL Learners' thematic inferential processing during text comprehension. The experiment adopted reading time method with working memory capacity being between participant variable and the priming conditions within participant variable. The participants of this experiment were non-English major college students, and their online thematic inferential processing during narrative text comprehension was examined. Analyses of the data pointed to the following two major findings of this experiment. Firstly, there is a significant main effect of working memory capacity. That is, high working memory capacity participants were able to draw thematic inferences online, whereas their low working memory counterparts showed relative failure to do so. Secondly, there was a significant main effect of priming conditions, but the interaction between the priming conditions and working memory capacity was not statistically significant.