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SAGE Journal User Guide

Article 1: Schotter, E. R., Tran, R., & Rayner, K. (2014). Don’t believe what you read (only once): comprehension is supported by regressions during reading. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1218-1226. doi: 10.1177/0956797614531148 

• An empirical study showing that word-by-word serial reading, as used by some recent speed reading apps, negatively affects comprehension. Eliminating the ability to make regressions to reread part of a sentence decreased comprehension for both ambiguous and unambiguous sentences.

Discussion Questions

1. Try out a speed reading app that uses rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) – or see the related video for this chapter.
2. Describe the four conditions compared and explain how they were different from each other. How is the trailing mask like RSVP?
3. State the results for comprehension accuracy. Consulting Figure 6, describe which factors lower comprehension accuracy, using Normal Reading of Unambiguous Sentences with Regressions as the starting point. 
4. Do you think these results could be explained by the readers not being practiced at using this new reading style? How could you maximize both faster speed and higher comprehension?

Article 2: Blythe, H. I. (2014). Developmental changes in eye movements and visual information encoding associated with learning to read. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23(3), 201-207. doi: 10.1177/0963721414530145

• A summary and position paper describing how eye movement measures can be used to discover and assess the mutual development of children’s cognitive processes and reading abilities.

Discussion Questions

1. Describe how childrens’ eye movement behavior is different than adults.’ Consider specific measures that involve fixations, saccades, and regressions.
2. Identify the author’s main thesis or claim in the paper.
3. List evidence that supports her claim. Explain how parafoveal preview and regressions are involved in cognitive control. 

Article 3: Quinlan T., Loncke, M., Leijten, M., & Van Waes, L. (2012). Coordinating the cognitive processes of writing: the role of the monitor. Written Communication, 29(3), 345-368. doi: 10.1177/0741088312451112

• An empirical study investigating how the working memory “monitor” coordinates subtasks during writing. Results indicate that sentence completion generally takes precedent, although error correction occurs earlier when working memory demands are lower.

Discussion Questions

1. Describe what the possible functions of the “monitor” are, based on the article’s introduction.  Which two subtask functions of the monitor did the authors investigate experimentally?
2. What were the conditions in each experiment? How was working memory load increased? How was error difficulty manipulated?
3. Considering the main results, how were the two subtasks ordered and coordinated to be most efficient?
4. Do you think you spend more time producing or evaluating your writing? Why?