Mind wandering and binding in working memory : individual differences in reading comprehension.

This study investigated the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and reading comprehension. The binding theory and executive attention theory are examined to see which provide a better fit for variation in WMC. The binding theory posits that WMC variances are contributed from the ability to maintain and form bindings through representations while the executive attention theory states that WMC variances are due to the ability to control attention. Binding ability is measured through the use of feature binding tasks and attention control is measured through the proportion of task unrelated thoughts during the reading task. The fit of the two theories are measured through correlations with reading comprehension scores. It was found that correlations did not exist and this might have been due to methodological problems or the failure for both theories to generalize across the reading comprehension task. In addition, feature binding as a new method was used to test inhibition so that it could more accurately measure relations between binding and inhibition. Correlations were found between binding and inhibition scores and it could have meant that ability in inhibition is relevant with the ability to binding (Oberauer, 2001).Bachelor of Art