Working Memory and Reactivity

Language Learning ISSN 0023-8333

Working Memory and Reactivity

Jaemyung GooGeorgetown University

The present study explores the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC)and think-alouds, focusing on the issue of reactivity. Two WM span tasks (listen-ing span and operation span) were administered to 42 English-speaking learners ofSpanish. Learner performance on reading comprehension and written production wasmeasured under two experimental conditions (think-aloud vs. non-think-aloud condi-tions). Results showed that think-alouds had negatively affected learner performance onreading comprehension, indicating the presence of reactive effects. Particularly inter-esting is the finding that reactive effects of think-alouds seem to have occurred in thecourse of rule learning among the high-WMC learners, but not among the low-WMClearners. The findings suggest that individual differences in WMC should be taken intocareful consideration in future research that involves think-aloud protocols.

Keywords Second language acquisition (SLA); working memory capacity (WMC);reactivity; think-alouds

Reflecting SLA researchers’ growing interest in second language (L2) learn-ers’ attention and awareness, much research has employed concurrent verbalreporting such as think-alouds as a useful methodological tool for examining

The initial report of this study was presented at the annual conference of the American Association

for Applied Linguistics (Washington, DC, March 29–April 1, 2008). I would like to express my

gratitude to Dr. Alison Mackey and Dr. Ron Leow for their valuable comments on an earlier

version of the article and Dr. Michael Long for his comments on the project and help with

recruiting participants. I am grateful to the three anonymous Language Learning reviewers for

their insightful feedback and wonderful comments and to Dr. Robert DeKeyser for his helpful

editing suggestions. Above all, I am deeply indebted to my lovely colleague and friend, Gisela

Granena, for her invaluable help with the Spanish materials and her assistance in the entire data

collection process.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jaemyung Goo, Department

of Linguistics, Georgetown University, 37th and O Sts., NW, Washington, DC 20057. Internet:

[email protected]

[Corrections added after online publication 5/14/10: On page 1, the words “first-language” have

been removed from the second sentence of the abstract. On page 29, note 1: Gf has been corrected

to gF. Wiley-Blackwell apologizes for these errors.]

Language Learning 60:4, December 2010, pp. 712–752 712C© 2010 Language Learning Research Club, University of MichiganDOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9922.2010.00573.x

Goo Working Memory and Reactivity

L2 learners’ cognitive processes (e.g., Alanen, 1995; Leow, 1997, 1998, 2000;Rosa & O’Neill, 1999; Sachs & Polio, 2007; Sachs & Suh, 2007; Swain &Lapkin, 1995). Despite the ever-increasing use of think-aloud protocols, con-cerns have not completely disappeared about the possibility that having learnersverbalize their thoughts while completing a task may lead to changes in theircognitive processes, affecting their performance (i.e., reactive effects). Recentresearch has investigated this issue of reactivity and found rather mixed re-sults (Bowles, 2008; Bowles & Leow, 2005; Leow & Morgan-Short, 2004;Rossomondo, 2007; Sachs & Polio, 2007; Sachs & Suh, 2007; Sanz, Lin,Lado, Bowden, & Stafford, 2009). However, as verbalizing thoughts duringtask performance likely makes nontrivial online demands on one’s cognitivecapacity, it can be assumed that the occurrence of reactive effects on learnerperformance may depend, to some extent, on cognitive abilities reflected inworking memory capacity (WMC). WMC is an important construct in expli-cating higher order cognitive performance such as language comprehension,reasoning, and general fluid intelligence and has been researched extensivelyand thoroughly in cognitive psychology (see Baddeley, 2007; Conway, Jarrold,Kane, Miyake, & Towse, 2007a; Jarrold & Towse, 2006; Miyake, 2001; Miyake& Shah, 1999, for a review of theories and models of WM and its theoreticaldevelopments). Reflecting a burgeoning interest in research on individual dif-ferences in terms of how they affect the scale and scope of L2 development,WMC has recently been spotlighted in the field of SLA and even considered,by some researchers, as a potentially critical component of language aptitude(e.g., Miyake & Friedman, 1998; Robinson, 2005a; Skehan, 2002). As such,much attention has been drawn to WMC and the effects of individual dif-ferences in WMC on L2 learning (e.g., Geva & Ryan, 1993; Harrington &Sawyer, 1992; Havik, Roberts, van Hout, Schreuder, & Haverkort, 2009; Juffs,2004, 2005; Kormos & Safar, 2008; Mackey, Adams, Stafford, & Winke, inpress; Mackey, Philp, Egi, Fujii, & Tatsumi, 2002; Miyake & Friedman, 1998;Robinson, 2002, 2005b; Sagarra, 2007, 2008; Tokowicz, Michael, & Kroll,2004; Trofimovich, Ammar, & Gatbonton, 2007; Walter, 2004; see alsoWilliams, in press, for a review of research on WM and its relation to firstlanguage (L1) learning and L2 learning). The study reported in this article wasprimarily designed to investigate how individual differences in WMC mediatethe potential occurrence of reactive effects, if any, on reading comprehensionand rule learning for L2 learners of Spanish as a foreign language. In thesubsequent sections, relevant research on the nature of WM and individualdifferences in WMC as well as on think-aloud protocols is reviewed, followedby the report of the present study.

713 Language Learning 60:4, December 2010, pp. 712–752


Think-Aloud Protocols

Protocol analysis has emerged as one of the principal methods for investigat-ing L2 learners’ thoughts and thought processes and has been employed anddiscussed in much SLA research (e.g., Alanen, 1995; Bowles, 2008; Bowles &Leow, 2005; Leow, 1997, 1998, 2000; Leow & Morgan-Short, 2004; Mackey,Gass, & McDonough, 2000; Mackey et al., 2007; Rosa & O’Neill, 1999;Rossomondo, 2007; Sachs & Polio, 2007; Sachs & Suh, 2007; Sanz et al.,2009; Swain & Lapkin, 1995, 2002). Especially, such concurrent verbal re-ports as think-aloud protocols, inter alia, have contributed to providing a richsource of insightful information on L2 learners’ cognitive processes. The actof thinking aloud involves verbalizing a sequence of thoughts or, as Ericssonand Simon (1993) put it, “cognitive processes described as successive statesof heeded information” (p. 16) that occur simultaneously during task com-pletion; that is, verbal reports of this kind are collected when participants areinstructed to verbalize their thoughts while performing their task(s). Ericssonand Simon in their discussion on protocol analysis categorized concurrent ver-balization into three types based on the complexity of intermediate processesprior to articulation: Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 verbalizations. In Level 1verbalization, no verbal recoding is required, as sequences of thoughts arereadily reportable (e.g., talk-alouds as in verbalizing a mental calculation of23 × 56). For Level 2 verbalization (also called “nonmetalinguistic think-aloud”), recoding is necessary for thoughts to be reported, as they are not inverbal code, but no other mediating processes are required. Thus, in Level 2verbalization, participants vocalize their thoughts during task performance withno special effort to explain or justify their thoughts. Ericsson and Simon notedthat a simple recoding does not change the sequence of heeded information.In Level 3 verbalization, participants are instructed to explain or justify theirthoughts and thought processes during task completion in addition to verbal-izing their ongoing thinking (see Bowles & Leow, 2005, for their operational-ization of this type of verbalization). For this reason, it is also known as ametalinguistic think-aloud. This type of verbalization, according to Ericssonand Simon, likely changes the structure of cognitive processes, resulting inreactive effects on task performance and therefore is inappropriate for investi-gations into ongoing (uninterrupted) cognitive processes. Ericsson and Simonsuggested that the closest connection is achieved between the verbal proto-col and the actual thought processes via Level 1 and Level 2 verbalizations.Regarding the utility of Level 3 verbalization, however, they noted that someinstructions that generate Level 3 verbalization may have important educational

Language Learning 60:4, December 2010, pp. 712–752 714


implications for improving learning (see also Smagorinsky, 1998, 2001, for adiscussion on the usefulness of Level 3 verbalizations from a socioculturalperspective).

Although think-alouds have been regarded and utilized as a useful method-ological tool for gaining access to L2 learners’ cognitive processes, concernshave been discussed about possible structural changes made to cognitive pro-cesses during a think-aloud, influencing L2 learners’ task performance (e.g.,Cohen, 2000; Jourdenais, 2001; Wigglesworth, 2005). As mentioned earlier,however, Ericsson and Simon (1993, 1998) posited that task performance isaffected as a result of think-alouds only when participants are required toexplain, justify, or carefully describe their thoughts and thought processes.Because generating thoughts for strategic verbal reporting (e.g., explanationsand justifications) inevitably involves additional cognitive processes, accord-ing to Ericsson and Simon (1993, 1998), metalinguistic think-alouds (Level 3verbalization) change the structure of thoughts or the sequence of heeded in-formation, engendering reactive effects on task performance. In contrast, it islikely that a sequence of thoughts verbalized within the purview of Level 1and Level 2 verbalizations remains intact. In fact, Ericsson and Simon (1993)in their review of more than 30 experimental studies comparing performancewith and without verbalization of thoughts found no reliable evidence thatnonmetalinguistic think-alouds changed the sequences of thoughts and thoughtprocesses during task completion. Their review, however, provided evidencethat if participants were required to explain their thoughts (Level 3 verbaliza-tions or metalinguistic think-alouds), the structure of cognitive processes waschanged. The “requirements for verbalized explanations biased participantsto adopt more orderly and rigorous strategies to the problems that were eas-ier to communicate in a coherent fashion, but in turn altered the sequence ofthoughts.” (Ericsson & Simon, 1998, p. 183), resulting in reactive effects onparticipants’ task performance.

Recent SLA research has investigated this still-lingering concern about re-activity that think-alouds may cause (Bowles, 2008; Bowles & Leow, 2005;Leow & Morgan-Short, 2004; Rossomondo, 2007; Sachs & Polio, 2007; Sachs& Suh, 2007; Sanz et al., 2009). Leow and Morgan-Short (2004), the first L2study on the issue of reactivity of concurrent verbalizations, examined the ef-fects of think-alouds on learners’ comprehension, intake, and controlled writtenproduction. Each participant was instructed to read an article (either enhancedor unenhanced version) and then complete three assessment tasks: a compre-hension task, a fill-in-the-blank task, and a multiple-choice recognition task.The results showed no significant differences between the think-aloud groups



and the control groups in their performance on any of the three assessmenttasks that they carried out.

Another study conducted by Bowles and Leow (2005) provided additionalinsights into the issue of reactivity. Two types of verbalizations were examinedin terms of their impact on learner performance: metalinguistic verbaliza-tion and nonmetalinguistic verbalization. No reactivity was evidenced in anycomparisons between the control and either of the two experimental groups—metalinguistic and nonmetalinguistic groups—although they found a signifi-cant difference between the two experimental groups in their comprehension.Bowles (2008) took a step further by investigating the issue (metalinguisticvs. nonmetalinguistic vs. control) in relation to the type of feedback (implicitvs. explicit). Somewhat differently from Bowles and Leow’s study, a statis-tically significant difference was found between the control group and themetalinguistic group in the production of previously viewed exemplars con-taining the target structure gustar. However, no significant effect for the typeof verbalization was evidenced in the production of novel exemplars. Fur-thermore, no interaction between the type of verbalization and the type offeedback was statistically significant. Given this inconclusive evidence, the is-sue of reactivity that involves metalinguistic think-alouds merits more researchin the years to come. This issue, albeit intriguing, is beyond the scope of thepresent study.

A recent study by Rossomondo (2007) lent support to the previous findingby Leow and Morgan-Short (2004) and Bowles and Leow (2005) of no negativereactive effect of think-alouds on learner performance. She utilized both silentreading and thinking aloud in order to examine the role of the text interactionformat in her study designed to investigate the effects of the presence or absenceof lexical temporal indicators (LTIs) on learner comprehension and processingof the Spanish future tense. No negative effect of the think-aloud condition wasevidenced, providing additional evidence of no negative reactivity. It should benoted, however, that the act of thinking aloud was found to enhance learner per-formance on the form-recognition and form-production tasks in her study; thatis, some evidence of positive reactivity was observed, as in Sanz et al.’s (2009)study (see their second experiment for evidence). Similarly, Sachs and Suh(2007) found no negative reactive effects of think-alouds in their synchronouscomputer-mediated communication study on the effectiveness of textually en-hanced recasts in the development of English tense shifting (from the past tothe past perfect).

However, Sachs and Polio (2007) found some evidence of negative reac-tivity. Their study was designed to investigate reactivity as well as the effects



of different types of written feedback on L2 writing development. Two typesof written feedback operationalized in the study were error correction andreformulation. To study the issue of reactivity, they included one more exper-imental condition (reformulation + think-aloud) and compared two reformu-lation groups (reformulation-only vs. reformulation + think-aloud) in termsof accuracy in an L2 writing revision task. The results of the first experiment(within-subjects design) showed that learners produced significantly more accu-rate revisions in the reformulation-only condition than in the reformulation +think-aloud condition, which indicates that think-alouds may negatively af-fect the extent to which L2 learners may benefit from corrective feedback ontheir writing performance. In the second experiment (between-groups design),however, no significant difference was found between the reformulation-onlyand reformulation + think-aloud conditions, showing nonreactivity. Regard-less of whether the conflicting results with respect to the occurrence of reactiveeffects may be due to the two different experimental designs employed, thefindings suggest that there is still a possibility that think-alouds may have anegative impact on learner performance and that more research should be con-ducted to provide a clearer answer to the question of whether think-aloudsare reactive.

Interestingly, none of the studies reviewed above manipulated such im-portant variables as language aptitude, WMC, intelligence, motivation, and soforth, although individual differences in these factors are known to have an ef-fect on L2 learning and learning processes. Particularly in relation to the presentstudy, it is reasonably speculated that WMC may affect the extent to which theact of thinking aloud leads to reactive effects, if any, on learner performancebecause it is likely that cognitive competence mirrored in WMC determinesindividual learners’ susceptibility to reactivity as well as their ability to combatreactivity. In what follows, research on WM in the field of cognitive psychologyis reviewed.

Working Memory

Since the inception of the concept of WM (e.g., Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) thatbegan to replace that of short-term memory (STM; generally defined as a sys-tem for the temporary storage of information), WM has been given a positionof pivotal importance in the field of cognitive psychology (and other researchareas that deal with human cognition), generating a barrage of theoretical ex-planations and numerous empirical studies with respect to the nature of WMand its relationship with higher order cognitive behaviors (see Baddeley, 2007;



Conway et al., 2007a; Jarrold & Towse, 2006; Miyake, 2001; Miyake & Shah,1999, for varied theories and models about WM and reviews of relevant the-oretical developments). In general, WM is viewed as “the ability to maintaininformation in an active and readily accessible state, while concurrently andselectively processing new information” (Conway, Jarrold, Kane, Miyake, &Towse, 2007b, p. 3). Similarly, Jarrold and Towse (2006) defined it as “the abil-ity to hold in mind information in the face of potentially interfering distraction inorder to guide behavior” (p. 39); that is, the WM system comprises mechanismsdedicated to active maintenance of information and mechanisms for cognitivecontrol that coordinate and integrate its storage and processing operations toguide task-relevant behaviors. Due to these mechanisms, WM is considered abroader concept than STM and thought to be involved in a wide range of higherorder cognitive performance, serving a critical function in human cognition.Hence, individual differences in WMC may well be reflected in differences inperformance on varied complex cognitive tasks such as language comprehen-sion, including reading and sentence processing (e.g., Daneman & Carpenter,1980, 1983; Just & Carpenter, 1992; King & Just, 1991; MacDonald, Just,& Carpenter, 1992; see Daneman & Merikle, 1996, for a meta-analysis), andgeneral intellectual abilities, including reasoning and general fluid intelligence1

(e.g., Conway, Cowan, Bunting, Therriault, & Minkoff, 2002; Conway, Kane, &Engle, 2003; Engle, 2002; Engle, Tuholski, Laughlin, & Conway, 1999; Kaneet al., 2004; Suβ, Oberauer, Wittmann, Wilhelm, & Schulze, 2002; see alsoAckerman, Beier, & Boyle, 2005 for a meta-analysis and Kane, Hambrick, &Conway’s [2005] response to Ackerman et al.’s findings).

Although there appears to be a consensus regarding the predictive powerof WMC for higher order cognitive performance, the issues of the exact na-ture of WM and of individual variation in WMC are controversial and in-conclusive among cognitive psychologists. According to the resource-sharingaccount (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980, 1983), WM capacity is a limited poolof cognitive resources and the amount of information that can be stored duringprocessing depends on how efficiently such processing can take place, a trade-off between the processing and storage demands. The task-switching accountis an alternative proposal to the resource-sharing account about the nature ofWM and variation in WMC (Towse & Hitch, 1995, 2007; Towse, Hitch, &Hutton, 1998). According to this account, WMC is limited because individualsundergo the rapid forgetting of to-be-remembered items during the time spentprocessing. Thus, performance on WM span tasks is to a large extent deter-mined by the temporal dynamics of WM span, which points to the intrinsicinvolvement of processing efficiency and time in the maintenance or loss of



temporary information (see, however, Conway & Engle, 1996; Conway et al.,2002; Engle, Cantor, & Carullo, 1992; Friedman & Miyake, 2004, for evidenceagainst these processing-based accounts).

The executive attention view, another line of theoretical explanation, illus-trates that individual differences in WMC that lead to performance differencesin complex cognitive tasks derive mainly from variation in domain-generalexecutive attention processes and, to some extent, from variation in domain-specific storage and rehearsal processes (Engle, 2002; Engle, Kane, & Tuholski,1999; Engle, Tuholski et al., 1999; Kane, Bleckley, Conway, & Engle, 2001;Kane, Conway, Hambrick, & Engle, 2007). More recently, Kane et al. (2007)went so far as to suggest that “a third variable, representing a low-level ex-ecutive attention capability, influences functioning on all of these selective-attention, WM-span, and memory-retrieval tasks (and, presumably, on indicesof Gf as well)” (p. 34), which is supported by empirical evidence found in pre-vious research involving such memory-independent tasks as dichotic listening2

(Conway, Cowan, & Bunting, 2001), antisaccade3 (Kane et al., 2001), andStroop4 tasks (Kane & Engle, 2003). However, Oberauer, Suβ, Wilhelm, andWittmann (2003) in their facet model of the structure of WM (two facets:content domains and cognitive functions) found that the task-set-switchingvariables assumed to reflect executive functions (or supervision) did not sub-stantially correlate with WMC factors, posing a serious challenge to the execu-tive attention theory (see Oberauer, Suβ, Wilhelm, & Sander, 2007, for furtherdiscussion; also Colom, Shih, Flores-Mendoza, & Quiroga, 2006, for a similarchallenge to the executive attention theory).

Similar to the executive attention view in emphasizing cognitive control,Hasher and her colleagues (Hasher, Lustig, & Zacks, 2007; Hasher & Zacks,1988; Hasher, Zacks, & May, 1999) contended that inhibitory-based executivecontrol is an essential factor that determines the scale and scope of the predictivepower of WM tasks and that inhibitory control functions

in the service of goals to (1) prevent irrelevant information fromgaining access to the focus of attention, (2) delete no-longer relevant itemsfrom consideration, and (3) restrain prepotent responses so that other,initially weaker response candidates can be evaluated and influencebehavior as appropriate for current goals. (Hasher et al., 2007,pp. 230–231)

The difference between the inhibitory control view and the executive attentionview is that the former interprets inhibitory control as determining WMC,



whereas the latter, according to its most recent rendition (e.g., Kane et al.,2007), assumes simple executive attention processes to determine inhibitorycontrol as well as WMC, which involves active maintenance of goal-relevantinformation in the face of interference and distraction.

From a similar perspective of cognitive control, Braver, Gray, and Burgess(2007) suggested that proactive control mechanisms serve to prevent interfer-ence, whereas reactive control processes can detect and suppress interferencewhen it occurs. Unsworth and Engle (2007) also claimed that low-WMC in-dividuals are more vulnerable to proactive interference (PI) than high-WMCindividuals because low-WMC individuals are poor at delimiting their searchsets to task-relevant representations, rendering a retrieval process quite chal-lenging (see also Unsworth, 2007, in this line of argument).

Other researchers focused on storage constraints as well as processingand executive control, claiming that multiple sources are responsible for WMvariation. For example, Jarrold and Bayliss (2007) considered storage con-straints as another important culprit of individual and developmental varia-tion in WM performance, arguing that variation in WM capacity stems fromthree independent sources: storage capacity, processing efficiency, and ex-ecutive ability to coordinate or combine the two demands. Based on theirresearch on expert performance, Ericsson and his colleagues (Ericsson &Delaney, 1999; Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995) proposed the existence of long-term WM. Under this view, through the acquisition of domain-specific skills,individuals are able to encode relevant information into long-term memoryin a readily accessible form so that the encoded information can be rapidlyretrieved from long-term memory whenever needed during domain-specificactivities. Another interesting proposal is that there may be a specializedsystem in the central executive dedicated predominantly to online syntacticprocessing and other related aspects of language processing: a separate WMsystem that is not represented by general verbal WM as measured by stan-dard WM tests (Caplan, Waters, & DeDe, 2007). Various other theoreticalexplanations and models have been proposed in strenuous efforts to under-stand the nature of WM and sources of individual variation in WMC (seeConway et al., 2007a; Miyake & Shah, 1999, for diverse theoretical mod-els). Infeasible as it may be to reach a consensus on the nature of WM andof individual variation in WMC, more research will definitely contributeto theoretical developments by providing evidence for new theoretical ac-counts as well as confirming or disconfirming contemporary theories andmodels.



Working Memory, Think-Alouds, and the Present Study

As indicated above, WMC has emerged as a topic of crucial importance, engen-dering numerous studies on its relation to varied cognitive behaviors. What hasbeen shown and demonstrated in most of these studies is that WMC is stronglycorrelated with higher order cognitive functioning (e.g., reading comprehen-sion, reasoning, general fluid intelligence, etc.) as well as simple attention-control tasks (e.g., Stroop, dichotic listening, antisaccade tasks). Consideringthe predictive role of WMC in complex cognitive performance, it can be rea-sonably inferred that WMC may play a nontrivial role in the course of thinkingaloud during task completion. A WM span measure and a task that involvesthinking aloud are similar in that they both impose cognitive demands on partic-ipants in relation to attentional control. WM span measures require participantsto engage in actively maintaining information in a readily accessible state whileprocessing new incoming information, which necessitates some level of cogni-tive control of attention. Likewise, during a task that involves the act of thinkingaloud, cognitive control may be critical in meeting the requirement to verbal-ize their thoughts while processing information derived from a given task (e.g.,reading). Because of this somewhat similar dual-component nature in both WMspan measures and tasks involving think-alouds, it may not be too far-fetchedan assumption that individual variation in WMC likely reflects performanceon a task that requires concurrent verbalization in addition to the main com-ponent of the task; that is, individuals with high WMC may be better able toprocess and keep information active and readily accessible while verbalizingtheir thoughts—for instance, by utilizing their fine-grained executive attentionprocesses (e.g., Kane et al., 2007) or a higher level of inhibitory control (e.g.,Hasher et al., 2007)—compared to those with low WMC. In other words, forlow-span individuals, verbalizing their thoughts may interfere with their cogni-tive processes required to perform a given task, whereas high-span individualsmay not be affected by interference or distraction caused by the verbalizationrequirement because of their superior use of attention control mechanisms. Thisindicates that WMC may have an important bearing on the issue of reactivity.

The present study was designed to investigate the issue of reactivity that mayarise from the presence of the verbalization requirement in carrying out tasksas well as the effects of WMC on reading comprehension and the developmentof a Spanish structure—Spanish immediate future (equivalent to “be going to”in English). More importantly, the study examined whether and how WMCmeasured via L1 listening span and operation span tasks was related to the



possible occurrence of reactivity. The research questions addressed in thisstudy are as follows:

RQ1: Is WMC related to learner performance on comprehension?RQ2: Does thinking aloud while completing a task lead to reactive effects on

learner comprehension?RQ3: Is WMC related to the development of Spanish immediate future?RQ4: Does thinking aloud while completing a task lead to reactive effects on

the development of Spanish immediate future?RQ5: How is WMC related to learner performance under the think-aloud and

nonthink-aloud conditions?

Method

ParticipantsThe original pool included a total of 114 first-semester English-speaking learn-ers of Spanish as a foreign language attending an American university at thetime of the study. Of those in the original pool, only 42 learners (male = 19,female = 23) participated in the entire experiment. Excluded from the originalpool were those whose performance on the background or processing portionsof two WM span tasks (listening span and operation span tasks) was below 80%in accuracy on the average,5 those whose knowledge about the target structurewas evidenced in the pretest, and those who did not finish all the tasks. Theirages ranged from 18 to 22 (M = 20.64, SD = 1.71). Of the 42 learners inthe final pool, 19 learners (45.2%) had been to Spanish-speaking countries:Spain (n = 1), other Spanish-speaking countries (n = 17), and both (n = 1),mainly for traveling purpose (n = 18, 94.7%), with the exception of one caseof study abroad. Their length of stay ranged from 1 to 70 days (M = 17.42,SD = 18.31). Some had also studied other foreign languages than Spanish(e.g., French, Italian, German, Hebrew, Russian, etc.). They were assigned toone of three WMC groups (high, mid, low) based on their performance on theWM span tasks (converted into z-scores): high for those whose z-scores werehigher than .5, mid for those whose z-scores were between −.5 and .5, andlow for those whose z-scores were lower than −.5, following Mackey et al.(2002). Then learners in each WMC group were randomly assigned to one oftwo experimental conditions: one think-aloud (TA) and one non-think-aloud(NTA) (see Table 1).



Table 1 Experimental grouping of participants

Groups WM High WM Mid WM Low

Think-aloud (n = 19) n = 7 n = 7 n = 5Non-think-aloud (n = 23) n = 8 n = 8 n = 7

Linguistic TargetThe immediate future in Spanish (with the first-person plural: “we”) withreflexive and nonreflexive verbs was selected as the target linguistic form, asin Vamos a ver la Torre Eiffel “We are going to see the Eiffel Tower” andVamos a levantarnos a las 6 “We are going to get up at 6.” Similar to therationale for the selection of the target structure used in Leow and Morgan-Short’s (2004) study, contextual guessing and learning of the Spanish immediatefuture was highly likely to occur through the given context provided in thetreatment text. Participants had not received any formal in-class instruction;formal exposure to it was expected to take place later in the semester.

Tasks and MaterialsListening Span Task6

The present study adopted the listening span task developed by Mackey et al.(in press) with minor procedural changes. It consisted of 36 English sentences(L1 sentences), prerecorded by a female native speaker (NS) of English at anormal speed and presented aurally through lab speakers. The recall items (thesentence-final words) were common, noncompound concrete nouns and wereone to three syllables in length. No sentence-final words in a set were seman-tically relevant to each other. The sentences were distributed in sets of three,four, or five sentences. A total of nine sets of sentences were included: threesets for each set size (e.g., three, four, and five). Set sizes were randomizedso that learners were prevented from guessing the number of sentences (thenumber of recall items, for that matter). More importantly, the randomizationof sets was designed to reduce the amount of PI assumed to build up in thetraditional ascending order of item presentation (see Lustig, May, & Hasher,2001; May, Hasher, & Kane, 1999, for research on this ordering issue; ascend-ing vs. descending). PI is defined as “the generally disruptive effect of priorlearning on the ability to retrieve more recently learned information” (Lustig& Hasher, 2002, p. 90). In the traditional ascending order of presentation, largeset sizes crucial for high recall scores appear later, and prior trials likely causePI when large sets of items need to be recalled, negatively affecting overallperformance on WM span tasks. This issue of PI was taken into consideration.



A two-sided answer sheet for the listening task was developed: one side for thegrammaticality part and the other side for the recall part of the task.

Prior to the actual task, pre-recorded instructions were provided whichincluded a practice set (three sentences). During the actual task, learners listenedto sentences in sets of three, four, or five. They were instructed to decide thegrammaticality of each sentence and put a checkmark on the answer sheetwithin 2 s after they heard it; Mackey et al. (in press) also included judgingsemantic appropriateness as an additional part of the background task for theirparticipants to carry out, but the pilot conducted prior to the present studyshowed that it might be too taxing. In addition, they were asked to recallthe last words of the sentences included in each set and write them down on theother side of the answer sheet following a sound signal (ting) that indicated theend of each set; they were given 11 s for set size 3, 14 s for set size 4, and 17 sfor set size 5, as determined in the pilot.

Operation Span TaskAn operation span task, originally developed by Turner and Engle (1989), isanother type of complex span measure that has been widely utilized and ac-cepted as tapping verbal WMC (e.g., Bunting, Conway, & Heitz, 2004; Conwayet al., 2003; Kane et al., 2004; Rosen & Engle, 1997, 1998; Tokowicz et al.,2004; Unsworth, 2007; Unsworth & Engle, 2007; also see Unsworth, Heitz,Schrock, & Engle, 2005, for a discussion of an automated version of the opera-tion span task). Thus, a variant of Turner and Engle’s operation-word span taskwas developed for the present study, using Microsoft PowerPoint. A total of 42mathematical operation-word pairs were generated and presented on as manyslides [e.g., “(2 × 3) + 1 = 7 PARK”]. Each pair consisted of a mathematicaloperation and a one-syllable English word. The words were three to six lettersin length and were the ones that were utilized in Engle and his colleagues’ op-eration span task (see http://psychology.gatech.edu/renglelab/tasks.htm). Thepairs were randomly distributed in sets of two, three, four, or five (three sets ofpairs for each set size) in order to reduce the buildup of PI, as in the case of thelistening span task. One additional slide after each operation-word pair slidewas inserted asking about whether the operation on the preceding slide was cor-rect or not (e.g., “Correct/Incorrect?”). After each set of operation-word slidesalong with as many slides of “Correct/Incorrect?” a slide with three questionmarks (e.g., “???”) was also included as a recall cue. Three practice sets ofsize 2 were used before the actual task. Half of the operations were correctand the other half were incorrect. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, anddivision were all counterbalanced. A two-sided answer sheet was developed for



the task: one side for the mathematical operation part and the other side for therecall part of the task.

In the actual operation span task, learners read aloud each mathematicaloperation-word pair and decided whether each operation was correct. Then theyput a checkmark on their answer sheet regarding its correctness. Five secondswere allowed for reading aloud the operation-word pair and deciding whetherthe operation was correct, and 2 s were allowed for putting a checkmark. Atthe end of each set of operation-word pairs, they were presented with threequestion marks (“???”), then they were supposed to recall the words shown inthe preceding set and write them down on the other side of the answer sheet.For this recall part of the test, they were given 8 s for set size 2, 11 s for set size3, 14 s for set size 4, and 17 s for set size 5.

Reading TaskA reading text (238 words) titled “Vacaciones en Mexico” (A vacation inMexico) was developed and used in the reading task. Such enhancement tech-niques as italics, boldface, and underlining were not incorporated in order toavoid any potentially confounding results and interpretations. Twenty instancesin which the target linguistic form was exemplified were contained in the text.A glossary of 26 Spanish words used in the text was also provided below thetext on the same page (see Appendix A) to prevent their lexical knowledgefrom affecting their comprehension.

Comprehension Test7

In the comprehension test, learners were instructed to provide short answers orchoose relevant information based on the contents of the text. The test consistedof nine comprehension questions that were designed to elicit 15 pieces ofinformation contained in the text (see Appendix B). All of the questions in thecomprehension test were presented in the learners’ L1, English, except Spanishproper nouns (e.g., names of places in Mexico); learners were instructed to useEnglish in their answers except when they needed to provide proper nouns inSpanish.

Written Production TestTwo versions of fill-in-the-blank tests were developed with the same 20 itemsin each version but in different contexts (see Appendix C).8 One of them wasused in the pretest, and the other was used in the posttest. Both the infinitiveand English equivalent of each item were provided for learners to construct theSpanish immediate future (see Example 1). Learners were required to fill in



each blank with an appropriate form, using a verb presented at the beginningof each test item.

Example 1“(Enjoy/Disfrutar)__________ del sol y la brisa”Expected answer: “Vamos a disfrutar del sol y la brisa”“(Spend/Pasar) _____________ un dıa en el zoo.”Expected answer: “Vamos a pasar un dıa en el zoo.”

Design and ProcedureThe study employed a pretest-posttest design to investigate whether WMCrelates to reading comprehension and L2 rule learning and whether/how WMCmediates the extent to which think-alouds lead to reactive effects on learnerperformance. The learners in the TA condition were instructed to think aloudduring the entire treatment and posttest sessions. Those in the NTA conditioncompleted the treatment and posttest sessions without thinking aloud.

Data were collected over two experimental sessions. The first session tookplace in a computer lab located in a university building. The two WM spantests and the pretest on the target structure (fill-in-the-blank written production)were administered during the first session. The listening span task precededthe operation span, followed by the pretest. It took approximately 15 min forlearners to finish each WM span test and 10 min to complete the pretest. Threeweeks later, the learners with all three levels of WMC in the TA condition werepulled out of their classrooms and met the researcher in a small laboratory.Instructions regarding how to think aloud were provided for the learners in theTA condition, followed by a couple of warm-up tasks (e.g., “What is the resultof 22 × 23?” “How many windows are there in your or your parents’ house?”)recommended by Ericsson and Simon (1993). The learners in the TA conditionwere instructed as follows:

In this experiment I am interested in what you think about while you arecompleting the entire experiment. Thus, I am going to ask you to THINKALOUD as you read a written text and answer questions in the follow-uptasks (comprehension and fill-in-the-blank tests); that is, you are supposedto THINK ALOUD from the time when you begin to read a written textuntil you finish the last task (fill-in-the-blank). Don’t plan what to say ortry to explain to me what you are thinking/saying, but rather let yourthoughts speak. Just act as if you were alone in this lab speaking toyourself. I would like you to talk CONSTANTLY, CLEARLY, andLOUDLY. Although this experiment is self-paced, meaning you can take



as much time as you want, please try to finish the entire experiment as fastas you can. You can think aloud either in Spanish or in English. Please letme know if you have any questions.

They were instructed to think aloud during the entire reading activity andfollow-up tests (comprehension and written production tests). They were re-minded to keep thinking aloud whenever necessary. Those in the NTA condition,however, stayed in their classrooms with their peers, who were not qualified forthe experiment. Their instructors had been informed of, and strictly followed,the procedure regarding all of the tasks (reading, comprehension, and writtenproduction tests) for the NTA condition, supervising the entire session. All ofthe learners received a four-page experimental packet that contained the read-ing text (page 1), the comprehension test (page 2), the fill-in-the-blank writtenproduction test (page 3), and a debriefing questionnaire (page 4). They wereinstructed to carry out the tasks in the order of presentation and not to return tothe previous page once they moved to the next one. It took the learners in the TAgroup approximately 50 min to finish the entire second data collection sessionand it took those in the NTA group 30 min to complete all the activities; forthe TA group, approximately 10 min were spent on the think-aloud instructionsand warm-up tasks. Table 2 shows the entire experimental procedure.

ScoringFor the background or processing part of each WM span measure (e.g., gram-maticality judgment for the listening span and mathematical operation for theoperation span), one point was given to each correct answer, and no point for anincorrect answer. Percentage scores were computed based on their performance

Table 2 Experimental procedure

Session 1 Session 2 (3 weeks later)

Consent form↓ Treatment (reading a text)

Personal information questionnaire ↓↓ Comprehension test

Listening span task ↓↓ Posttest (fill-in-the-blank)

Operation span task ↓↓ Debriefing questionnaire

Pretest (fill-in-the-blank)



Table 3 Internal consistency reliability coefficients

WM span tasks

Listening span Operation span

Comprehension Pretesta Posttest Grammar Recall Operation Recall

.651 1.00 .986 .696 .887 .853 .809

Note. The values are Cronbach’s alpha coefficients. Although an alpha between .70and .90 is considered reasonably appropriate, it is not uncommon to have an alphasomewhat lower than .70 (e.g., .60–.69) in a scale that includes only a few items (e.g.,comprehension test in the present study) (Leech, Barrett, & Morgan, 2005).aOnly one participant scored 2 and all of the others got zeros on the pretest. Because thereliability coefficient is based on the performance of the participants in the final pool, itis a result of the selection process that allowed only those who did not have knowledgeabout the target structure to remain in the experiment; that is, the reliability coefficientfor the pretest does not bear any meaning of importance.

on the processing parts of the tasks. As for the recall part of each WM spanmeasure, the partial-credit load scoring procedure was adopted (see Conwayet al., 2005, for a methodological review); that is, one point was awarded toeach correctly recalled item regardless of its serial position within a set, and nopoint for an incorrectly recalled or not-recalled item. Then percentage scoreswere calculated for each WM span measure, as was the case with the process-ing parts of the WM span measures. For each learner, an average percentagescore based on his or her percentage scores in the two WM span measures wasused as reflecting his or her WMC. With regard to the comprehension and thefill-in-the-blank written production tests, one point was awarded to each correctanswer for a total of 15 (comprehension test) and 20 (fill-in-the-blank writtenproduction); multiple points were allowed for Question 1 (4 points), Question 3(3 points), and Question 5 (2 points) in the nine-item comprehension test. ACronbach’s alpha coefficient was computed to estimate the internal consistencyreliability of each measure (see Table 3). Overall, most measures were notproblematic in terms of internal consistency; however, the alpha coefficient forthe posttest seems quite high, indicating that some kind of repetition mighthave been involved in measuring learners’ improvement. The Pearson correla-tion between the two WM span measures (on the recall part) showed statisticalsignificance (r = .521, p = .000); that is, the two WM span measures tappedmore or less the same construct. The significance level was set at .05 for allstatistical tests.



Results

In order to make sure that the three WMC groups differed from each other intheir span scores, Brown-Forsythe and Dunnett’s T3 post hoc pairwise compar-isons were computed due to the violation of the assumption of homogeneityof variances. Statistical significance was found in all tests, indicating that thegrouping based on WM scores was appropriate: Brown-Forsythe f (2, 20.182) =126.496 (p = .000) and all pairwise comparisons using Dunnett’s T3 weresignificant (p = .000 for all pairwise comparisons). Another statistical testconducted as a precaution was a t-test on WM scores between the TA and theNTA conditions. No significant difference was found in their WM span scoresbetween the TA (M = .73, SD = .15) and the NTA (M = .74, SD = .14)conditions, t(40) = −0.14 (p = .89, d = .07). This indicates that both groupsbegan on an equal footing in terms of WMC.

First, all the data, including those from the mid-WMC groups, were ana-lyzed to compare the performance of the TA with that of the NTA on both tests(comprehension and fill-in-the-blank written production tests). When statisticalsignificance was found in a regression analysis of WMC on learner performance(e.g., comprehension, fill-in-the-blank tests, or both), an ANCOVA with WMCas a covariate was conducted. The assumption of homogeneity of variances waschecked via Levene’s tests and normality via skewness and kurtosis statistics.

With regard to the learners’ performance on the comprehension test, aregression analysis was first carried out in order to examine whether WMCpredicted the results of the comprehension test. It was shown that almost novariance in the learners’ performance on reading comprehension was accountedfor by WMC, F(1, 40) = .56, p = .46, R = .12, R2 = .01, adjusted R2 = −.01.However, as shown in Table 4 (see also Figure 1), the difference between thetwo experimental conditions in their performance on the comprehension testshowed a revealing trend toward statistical significance with a medium effectsize (TA vs. NTA), t(40) = −1.99, p = .054, d = .62, indicating a sign ofreactivity on learner comprehension.

Table 4 Results of comprehension test

TA NTA

M SD M SD df t p d

8.58 2.22 10.22 2.97 40 −1.99 .054 .62

Note. TA means the think-aloud condition and NTA means the non-think-aloudcondition.



Figure 1 Learner performance on reading comprehension.

Another regression analysis was conducted on the learners’ performanceon the written production task (fill-in-the-blank) with all three WMC groupsincluded. Evidence was found that WMC, to some extent, predicted the learn-ers’ posttest performance on the written production task, F(1, 40) = 4.50, p =.04, R = .32, R2 = .10, adjusted R2 = .08, but not their pretest performance,F(1, 40) = 2.23, p = .14, R = .23, R2 = .05, adjusted R2 = .03. Due to thesignificant role of WMC in the learner performance on the posttest despite therather low R2 and adjusted R2 values (not much variance is accounted for byWMC), a decision was made to conduct a repeated-measures ANCOVA withWMC as a covariate. To prevent the covariate (WMC scores) from altering themain within-subjects effects of the repeated measure, the Delaney-Maxwellmethod (Delaney & Maxwell, 1981) was utilized in which each WM score wasadjusted based on the difference between the mean score and each individualscore.

There was no significant difference between the TA and NTA groups intheir pretest performance, t(40) = −0.91, p = .37. As shown in Table 5 andFigure 2, their performance on the posttest was drastically improved with thehelp of the reading activity. This is also evidenced in the repeated-measuresANCOVA with WMC as a covariate (see Table 6). The results of the ANCOVA



Table 5 Descriptive statistics for results of written production

TA (n = 19) NTA (n = 23) Total (n = 42)

M SD M SD M SD

Pretest 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.42 0.05 0.31Posttest 6.05 8.13 5.52 7.93 5.76 7.92

indicate a significant main effect of Time (pre-to-post), F(1, 39) = 23.65, p =.00, ηp

2 = .38, and of WMC (as a covariate) on learner performance, F(1, 39) =4.60, p = .04, ηp

2 = .11, but not of TANTA (think-aloud vs. nonthink-aloud),F(1, 39) = .05, p = .82, ηp

2 = .00. A significant Time × WMC interactioneffect was also found, F(1, 39) = 4.28, p = .045, ηp

2 = .10, which confirmsthe finding of the regression analysis that WMC predicted the learners’ posttestperformance (R = .32, p = .04) but not their performance on the pretest (R =.23, p = .14).

Data only from the extreme groups (high- and low-WMC groups) wereanalyzed to further examine, if any, reactive effects of think-alouds on learnerperformance (see Table 7). Because there were only a small number of subjectsin each of the four groups and the normality assumption was not met, a Mann-Whitney U (the nonparametric version of independent-samples t-test) was

Figure 2 Pre-to-post development on Spanish immediate future in written production.



Table 6 Repeated-measures ANCOVA for written production scores with WMC as acovariate

Source df MS F ηp2 p

Between-subjectsTANTA 1 1.63 0.05 .00 .82WMC 1 138.90 4.60∗ .11 .04Error 39 30.19

Within-subjectsTime 1 687.63 23.65∗ .38 .00Time × WMC 1 124.36 4.28∗ .10 .045Time × TANTA 1 2.75 0.10 .00 .76

Error 39 29.08

Note. Time = pre-to-post changes, TANTA = think-aloud vs. non-think-aloud.∗p < .05.

calculated for each pairwise comparison on the reading comprehension testand the written production posttest; the pretest scores were not submitted tothis portion of analysis due to the fact that all but one subject who had 2 pointsscored zeros on the written production pretest. No statistical significance wasevidenced in any pairwise comparison.

However, different patterns of pre-to-post developments in learner per-formance on the written production were observed. The pattern shown inFigure 3 indicates that high-WMC learners were somewhat negatively affectedby the verbalization requirement, but low-WMC learners were not particularly

Table 7 Descriptive statistics on comprehension and written production (WMC highvs. low)

WMC High WMC Low Total

TA NTA TA NTA TA NTA(n = 7) (n = 8) (n = 5) (n = 7) (n = 12) (n = 15)

Comprehension 9.43 10.25 8.00 9.86 8.83 10.07(2.70) (3.73) (2.55) (3.08) (2.62) (3.33)

Written Production 0.00 0.25 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.13Pretest (0.00) (0.71) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.52)

Written Production 6.57 9.13 4.00 1.86 5.50 5.73Posttest (8.52) (10.02) (8.94) (4.49) (8.39) (8.54)

Note. The values represent means and standard deviations (SDs are in parentheses).



Figure 3 Pre-to-post developments by TA and NTA groups within each WMC level.

affected by the requirement; under the low-WMC-TA condition (n = 5), onlyone person scored 20 and the other four learners got zeros, which indicates thatthe performance difference between the TA and NTA groups can be ignored.Additionally, as shown in Figure 4, the difference between high-WMC andlow-WMC learners in their performance on the written production was largerunder the NTA condition than under the TA condition.

Figure 4 Pre-to-post developments by WMC groups under TA and NTA conditions.



In sum, the results revealed that think-alouds had negatively affected thelearners’ reading comprehension, showing a clear trend toward a statisticallysignificant difference between the TA and NTA groups in favor of the NTAcondition (p = .054, d = .62). WMC failed to predict learner performance onthe reading comprehension test at the preset alpha level (α = .05). As for thewritten production test, a regression analysis showed that WMC had played asignificant role in learner performance. A repeated-measures ANCOVA found asignificant main effect of Time (pre-to-post development), but not of Treatment(TA vs. NTA), indicating no direct sign of reactivity. The Time × Treatmentinteraction was not statistically significant either. The extreme-groups compar-isons (comparisons that involved only high- and low-WMC learners, excludingdata from mid-WMC learners) fell short of statistical significance, implyingno direct evidence of reactivity or no significant role of WMC in this respect.Nonetheless, different patterns of their performance on the written productionposttest point to a potential link between WMC and reactivity of think-alouds,which is discussed in the next section along with some other issues in relationto the results.

Discussion

The study reported here was intended to examine the effects of WMC andthink-alouds on learner performance on reading comprehension and the de-velopment of Spanish immediate future and, more importantly, the interactionbetween the two variables: WMC and think-alouds. The first research ques-tion on whether WMC is related to learner performance on comprehensionwas answered negatively. The study found no direct evidence for the role ofWMC in reading comprehension. This result seems to contradict previous re-search findings that suggest the predictive power of WMC for reading/languagecomprehension (e.g., Daneman & Merikle, 1996; Harrington & Sawyer, 1992;Walter, 2004). This discrepancy, however, might be explained considering thatthe second research question on whether think-alouds lead to reactive effects oncomprehension was answered affirmatively. Given the fact that the verbalizationrequirement negatively affected learner comprehension (a clear trend towardstatistical significance, p = .054), the seemingly nonsignificant effect of WMCon reading comprehension is, albeit indirect, additional evidence of negativereactivity of think-alouds; that is, it may have been that the reactive effectsof think-alouds evidenced in the present experiment diminished the predictivepower of WMC for reading comprehension, leading to the nonsignificant corre-lation between WMC and comprehension. For learners in the TA group, in other



words, WM resources needed to enable them to think aloud while reading thetext exceeded their capacity limits above and beyond what they normally needor consume when engaging in silent reading, which confounded the explanatorypotential of WMC for learner performance on reading comprehension.

With regard to the presence of a statistical trend toward negative reactivityin terms of learner comprehension observed in the present study, somewhatdifferently from previous nonsignificant findings (e.g., Leow & Morgan-Short,2004; Rossomondo, 2007), one plausible explanation is that different targetstructures may inevitably provide different contexts, which may affect the levelof difficulty of a given text and complexity of sentences included in the text.More research is needed to confirm or disconfirm the present finding.

Regarding the third research question on whether WMC is related to learnerperformance on the development of Spanish immediate future, the study pro-vided an affirmative answer. The regression analysis showed a statistically sig-nificant result that indicated that WMC, indeed, predicted learner performanceon the posttest (written production). In the present experiment, the primarytask during the reading activity was to comprehend the text contents and thesecondary task expected to engender rule learning was to recognize a commongrammatical pattern of the target items included in the text. Despite comprehen-sion being the primary task, the secondary task (rule learning), however, wasstill in competition for cognitive resources. This is when the domain-generalexecutive attention or central executive in WM surfaced to function as an impor-tant cognitive control mechanism. As shown in previous research (e.g., Buntinget al., 2004; Conway & Engle, 1994; Kane & Engle, 2000; Rosen & Engle, 1997,1998), WM span differences arise under attention-demanding conditions thataccompany high interference and competition; simply put, WMC differencesmost likely emerge when a given task is cognitively demanding in relation toattention control. Rule learning while reading for comprehension in the presentexperiment may have entailed the use of executive control of attention due toits nature of being the secondary task, making the role of WMC variation rathersalient in L2 learning.

The fourth research question on whether think-alouds lead to reactive ef-fects on the development of Spanish immediate future was answered negatively,echoing previous findings of no negative reactivity in rule learning (e.g., Bowles& Leow, 2005; Leow & Morgan-Short, 2004; Sachs & Suh, 2007). The resultis interesting, however, because negative reactive effects were found to be al-most significant in their performance on the comprehension task (p = .054)but not on the production task. This selectivity may be attributable to the factthat reading for meaning (primary) was prioritized over rule learning through



exemplars (secondary) during the reading activity; namely, they focused muchmore on meaning than on a grammatical pattern exemplified in the text. Assuch, only a paucity of attention was oriented toward the secondary task (rulelearning), as opposed to the primary task (reading comprehension) to whichmost attention was paid. Accordingly, it is speculated that not much attentionwas left to be affected by the TA condition; that is, due to this insufficiencyor lack of attentional resources available for the secondary task in the firstplace, the cognitive interruption by the TA condition failed to reach the levelat which to make any significant difference in learner performance on the writ-ten production task (rule learning) between the two treatment groups (TA vs.NTA). On the other hand, the TA condition affected reading comprehension bymediating the provision of, and interrupting the flow of, attentional resources.Because both thinking aloud and reading comprehension involved intentionalbehaviors—unlike rule learning, which is somewhat incidental in the presentexperiment because of its being nonprimary—the TA condition had a con-flicting interest with reading comprehension in terms of attentional resources,jeopardizing the overall attention-control mechanism. This was corroboratedin this experiment (i.e., reactivity on comprehension and no significant resultas to the role of WMC in comprehension).

Concerning the fifth research question on how WMC relates to learner per-formance under the TA and NTA conditions, several pairwise extreme-groupscomparisons (high vs. low) were made in order to examine the precise rela-tionship between the two variables. No statistical significance was found in anypairwise comparison, using a Mann-Whitney U-test. However, although high-WMC learners performed better than did low-WMC learners in most cases,high-WMC learners were found to be more vulnerable to the verbalization re-quirement, compared to low-WMC learners, especially in their performance onthe written production task (see Figures 3 and 4). Among high-WMC learners,the NTA group outperformed the TA group on the written production posttest,whereas with low-WMC learners, the two treatment groups did not particu-larly differ from each other. In addition, the performance difference betweenthe high- and low-WMC groups was larger under the NTA condition than un-der the TA condition, providing indirect evidence of reactivity for high-WMClearners. At first, these results seem rather odd because, supposedly, high-WMCindividuals should be able to overcome an extra cognitive load—for instance,imposed by a think-aloud by virtue of their high WMC. Although counterin-tuitive, the results may reflect a function of high-level cognitive control thathigh-WMC individuals exert when engaging in attention-demanding tasks. Toelaborate, the high-WMC learners’ fine-grained controlled processes may have



enabled them to concentrate, with great intensity, on retrieving goal-relevantinformation (e.g., contents of the text) during the comprehension test, simulta-neously suppressing goal-irrelevant information (e.g., grammatical informationon the target structure and related target items) incorporated in the text usedin the reading activity that preceded the comprehension test. Stated differently,their access to grammatical information might have been severely impairedor blocked due to their high-level executive control that operated during thecomprehension test. This impaired access to grammatical information mayhave affected the high-WMC learners’ performance on the written productiontest, during which they attempted to recall grammatical information on thetarget structure and the specific target items that they had encountered duringthe reading activity. The cognitive advantage resulting from their ability touse controlled processes may have been reduced substantially, escalating theirsusceptibility to interference. It might have dissipated even more when theywere required to verbalize their thoughts concurrently, leading to the perfor-mance difference between the two high-WMC groups (TA vs. NTA) in favorof the NTA group. In contrast, as far as low-WMC learners are concerned,because of their coarse-grained executive control mechanism, verbalizing theirthoughts might not particularly have increased their already-high interferencevulnerability, making no significant performance difference between the twolow-WMC groups (TA vs. NTA).

Supportive evidence for this line of explanation on the impact of WMCvariation on task performance comes from Rosen and Engle’s (1998) study(Experiment 2). Rosen and Engle manipulated paired-associates list-learningtasks for two treatment conditions (interference vs. noninterference) for eachspan group (high vs. low): interference (AB-AC-AB) and noninterference (EF-CD-AB). They found the high-span participants in the interference conditionwere slower than their counterparts in the noninterference condition on Trial 1of List 3 and that they were also significantly slower when relearning thefirst-list response items (e.g., AB pairs on List 3) than when learning the sameresponse items for the first time (AB pairs on List 1), whereas no such significantdifference was found for the low-span participants. The results showed that thehigh-span participants in the interference condition had suppressed the first-list(e.g., AB) response items when learning the second list (e.g., AC), but thelow-span participants had not.

Rosen and Engle’s (1998) findings lend strong support to the current inter-pretation of the results found in the present study. The high-span individuals’superior use of executive control made it possible for them to suppress informa-tion on the grammatical structure while carrying out the comprehension test.



This suppression, however, may have affected their performance on the writtenproduction test for which it was critical to retrieve information on the targetstructure that they had been exposed to during the reading activity but sup-pressed during the comprehension test. As already mentioned, verbalizing theirthoughts during the written production test likely exacerbated their performanceeven further by engendering interference or distraction, resulting in differencesbetween the TA and NTA groups among the high-WMC learners. Rosen andEngle (1997) found that their high-span participants who performed both acategory task (retrieving animal names) and a concurrent digit-tracking taskretrieved significantly fewer animal names than did the high-span control thatperformed the category task only but that no such effect was evidenced in theirlow-span participants’ performance (Experiment 2). Additionally, a preexper-imental task (memorizing and recalling a list of 12 animal names) was foundto have influenced high-span but not low-span participants (Experiment 3).Kane and Engle (2000) observed similar results that showed increased PI ef-fects for the high-span participants under dual-task conditions but not for thelow-span participants. Engle and his colleagues in their recent proposal (e.g.,Kane et al., 2007) suggested that one fundamental strength of high-WMCindividuals is their superior use of executive control, vis-a-vis low-WMC in-dividuals, in simple attention-control tasks involving no memory componentssuch as dichotic listening (Conway et al., 2001), Stroop tasks (Kane & Engle,2003), and antisaccade tasks (Kane et al., 2001), all of which showed high-spanparticipants’ advantages over low-span participants in maintaining task goalsand controlling attention accordingly. This, at the same time, indicates why/howthe high-span learners, but not the low-span learners, may have been affectedby the verbalization requirement in the present study. Nevertheless, the validityof this line of interpretation has yet to be examined in future empirical studieson WMC and reactivity with larger samples.

Limitations and Future Research

As is often the case with most empirical research, the present study is subject tolimitations. The sizes of the samples used for the extreme-groups comparisons(high vs. low) were too small to make any crucial claims about potential interac-tions illustrated earlier. Also, only one target structure in one foreign languagewas chosen for this investigation. Utilizing and manipulating other structures inSpanish or structures in other foreign/second languages may differentially af-fect the degree to which the verbalization requirement has an impact on learnerperformance and the interaction between WMC and reactivity. In addition,



the types of dependent variable measures employed in five of the eight mostrecent studies on reactivity, including the present one, are almost identical—that is, comprehension and/or fill-in-the-blank/controlled written productiontests (Bowles, 2008; Bowles & Leow, 2005; Leow & Morgan-Short, 2004;Rossomondo, 2007). Other dependent variable measures need to be used toprovide more reliability for the present findings as well as the findings evi-denced in previous research.

Another important issue is whether L2 WM span measures should alsobe employed. Due to concerns about proficiency influencing performance onWM span tasks, only L1 WM span measures were utilized in the presentstudy. Learners were taking a first-semester Spanish course at the time ofthe experiment. As far as advanced learners are concerned, previous researchhas shown high correlations between L1 and L2 WM span measures (e.g.,Miyake & Friedman, 1998; Osaka & Osaka, 1992; Osaka, Osaka, & Groner,1993; van den Noort, Bosch, & Hugdahl, 2006); Mackey et al. (2002) alsofound a high correlation between L1 and L2 WM span measures with low-intermediate ESL learners. However, carrying out L2 WM span measures isfar more challenging for beginning-level learners than for advanced learn-ers, as evidenced in van den Noort et al.’s (2006) study that showed thatforeign language proficiency interacted with WMC despite high correlations.Nevertheless, utilizing L2 WM span measures that match L2 learners’ pro-ficiency may provide new insights into the relationship between WMC andreactivity.

Finally, STM capacity measured via such simple span tasks as word spanand digit span tasks may also be considered as an important variable to includein future research because STM and WMC may differentially influence cog-nitive processes during a think-aloud. More rigorous research that takes intoconsideration the methodological issues mentioned so far may assure a moredefinitive picture of the relationship between WMC and think-alouds in termsof reactivity as well as the extent to which WMC relates to L2 learning as awhole.

Conclusion

Notwithstanding the limitations mentioned above, the present study found sev-eral important pieces of evidence that WMC is related to reactivity. WMC ap-pears to have mediated reactive effects of think-alouds on learner performance,interacting with the verbalization load. The study showed that the verbalizationrequirement had led to more or less reactive effects on learner comprehension,



confounding and attenuating the generally accepted predictive power of WMCfor reading comprehension. Also found was a possible indication that the con-current verbalization requirement may have affected the high-WMC learnersonly, as reflected in their performance on the written production test (test on agrammatical target) that favored the NTA group. The high-WMC learners’ su-perior ability to suppress goal-irrelevant information (grammatical informationabout the target incorporated in the text) while focusing on the comprehensiontest may have affected their performance on the written production test by ren-dering it quite challenging to retrieve grammatical information that had beensuppressed or blocked during the comprehension test. In addition, the verbal-ization requirement may have increased the level of interference or distraction,leading to the performance difference between the TA and NTA groups amongthe high-WMC learners. This does not seem to be the case with the low-WMClearners because of their already low-level controlled processes, resulting inno difference between the TA and NTA conditions in their performance on thewritten production task. More importantly, the results suggest that individualdifferences in WMC should be taken into full consideration in future researchthat involves think-aloud protocols.

Revised version accepted 26 June 2009

Notes

1 General fluid intelligence (gF) refers to “the ability to solve novel problems andadapt to new situations and is thought to be nonverbal and relatively culture free”(Engle, Tuholski, et al., 1999, p. 313), which is independent of general knowledge.Two standardized tests most frequently used to measure gF are Cattell’s culture fairtest and Raven’s standard progressive matrices.

2 The dichotic listening task/procedure is to repeat aloud the message (or words)presented to one ear while ignoring information presented to the other ear. InConway et al.’s (2001) study, only 20% of high-span subjects reported hearing theirname inserted into the goal-irrelevant message compared to 65% of low-spansubjects who reported hearing their name via the irrelevant message channel.

3 In both prosaccade and antisaccade tasks, participants fixate in the middle of avisual display but must respond to each target stimulus (preceded by anattention-attracting cue) presented randomly to the left or right side of the display.Whereas the attention-attracting cue and the target stimulus appear on the same sideof the display in the prosaccade task, the cue always appears on the opposite side ofthe display from the target in the antisaccade task (e.g., a cue on the left side offixation followed by a target stimulus on the right side). Kane et al. (2001) found



that high-span subjects were faster and more accurate than low-span subjects in theantisaccade task.

4 In the Stroop task, participants are required to name each color word presented onthe screen based on the color of the ink in which the word is printed; for instance, ifRED is presented in blue color, they are supposed to say “Blue” not “Red.” Kaneand Engle (2003) showed that low-span subjects were more susceptible to Stroopinterference effects than high-span subjects, committing more color-naming errorsthan did their high-span counterparts, especially in the 75% or 80% congruentconditions.

5 Because the WM span measures were designed to tap learners’ ability to activelymaintain information while processing new information simultaneously, the cutoffwas intended to ensure that only those who concentrated on processing as well asstorage at the same time were included in the experiment. The cutoff was based on aresearch convention in cognitive psychology, according to which 80% or 85% inaccuracy is generally accepted and used as a cutoff.

6 A listening span task was developed as an aural version of reading span task(Daneman & Carpenter, 1980) and has been treated as such (Conway et al., 2005). Itis just a different type of test measuring the same construct (viz., verbal WMC).

7 Admittedly, as one reviewer pointed out, the reading comprehension test employedin the present study measured how well they retrieved the selected factual contentsof the text. Therefore, the relevant findings should not be interpreted as reflectingother components of reading comprehension (e.g., ability to infer meaning fromcontextual clues).

8 Efforts were made to maintain the comparability, in terms of difficulty, of the twoversions of the written production test by utilizing sentences in similar structuralconfigurations and similar kinds of high-frequency words in both versions. As inLeow and Morgan-Short’s (2004) study, a 3-week interval between the pretest andthe posttest, during which no classroom teaching of the target form occurred, wasdesigned to prevent or maximally minimize any practice effect on the writtenproduction posttest. As one of the reviewers noted, this type of constrained writtenproduction test is by no means a complete measure of development.

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Appendix A

Text for Reading Activity

Vacaciones en MexicoThis is a text telling you about the vacation plans that two people havefor the summer. You will read about some of the activities that they aregoing to do. When you are finished, please turn the page and complete thefollowing tasks. Once you move to the next page, we must NOT return tothis page to read the article again. You can use the glossary provided belowto help you with unknown words.

El lunes Pedro y yo vamos a levantarnos temprano porque el autobus sale alas 6 de la manana. Vamos a ir al parque nacional del Canon del Sumidero. Elparque es impresionante. Es una maravilla de la naturaleza. En el Canon hacemucho calor y sol y vamos a necesitar sombrero y proteccion solar. El traje debano tambien es necesario porque vamos a dar un paseo en canoa en el RıoGrijalva y vamos a banarnos en sus frescas aguas. Vamos a divertirnos mucho.A las 7 de la tarde vamos a subir al autobus para continuar la ruta. En SanCristobal de las Casas vamos a comprar souvenirs, artesanıa, y ropa porque esel mercado indıgena mas grande de Mexico. Por la noche, vamos a cenar en losrestaurantes del pueblo y vamos a acomodarnos en un bonito hotel del centro.El martes vamos a tener el dıa libre. Vamos a relajarnos y vamos a disfrutaral maximo. El miercoles vamos a visitar la catedral y tambien vamos a ver lascascadas de Agua Azul que se llaman ası por el color azul intenso del agua. Eljueves vamos a prepararnos para el retorno. Vamos a hacer la maleta y vamosa acostarnos pronto, a las 9 de la noche, porque el autobus sale a las 7 de lamanana. En definitiva, vamos a pasar unos dıas fantasticos y vamos a conocera muchos amigos.

GLOSSARYArtesanıa: handcrafts Proteccion solar: sun creamBelleza: beauty Pueblo: villageCalor: hot weather Retorno: journey backCanon: canyon Ropa: clothesCascada: waterfall Salir: leaveCenar: have dinner Sombrero: hatConocer: meet Subir: get onEn definitiva: in conclusion Temprano: earlyDisfrutar: enjoy Traje de bano: swimming suit



Fresco: cool, refreshingImpresionante: astoundingIntenso: deepLibre: freeMaleta: suitcaseMercado: marketPaseo: a walkPronto: early

Appendix B

Comprehension Task

1. The text mentions 4 places Pedro and the person who is speaking are goingto visit. Put a check mark next to the name of the places they are going to see:

____Guanajuato ____Barranca del Cobre ____ Canon del Sumidero____San Cristobal de las Casas ____ Rıo Grijalva ____Chihuahua____Puerto Vallarta ____Agua Azul ____ Rıo Grimava

2. Can you remember why Pedro and the person who is speaking have to getup early on Monday morning?____________________________________________________________

3. There are three things that Pedro and the person who is speaking are planningto buy in the biggest indigenous market of Mexico. Can you remember them?_______________ _____________ _______________

4. Which is the first place that Pedro and the person who is speaking are goingto see?____________________________________________________________

5. What are Pedro and the person who is speaking going to do in the river?____________________________________________________________

6. Where are Pedro and the person who is speaking going to be accommodated?____________________________________________________________

7. What are Pedro and the person who is speaking going to do on their freeday?____________________________________________________________

8. At what time are they planning to go to bed the last day?____________________________________________________________

9. At what time does the bus leave on the last day?____________________________________________________________



Appendix C

Written Production Tasks

PretestYou would like to tell me the plans that you and your friend have togetherfor the weekend. For each sentence, write the appropriate form of the verbin Spanish that indicates the plan that you and your friend have.

This is an example in English: (Have dinner) We are going to have dinner ata Mexican restaurant.

1. (Go up/Subir) ___________________________________a la Torre Eiffel.2. (Need/Necesitar) _________________________________ mucho dinero.3. (Spend/Pasar) __________________________________ un dıa en el zoo.4. (Meet/Conocer) ________________________________ a nuevos amigos.5. (Bathe/Banarse) _________________________en la piscina del campus.6. (Go/Ir) ________________________________ al cine a ver una pelıcula.7. (Buy/Comprar) _____________________________ CDs de musica rock.8. (Get ready/Prepararse) __________________ para el examen de espanol.9. (Have dinner/Cenar) _______________________ en un restaurante chino.

10. (Enjoy/Divertirse) _______________________________ en la discoteca.11. (Relax/Relajarse) __________________________________ en el parque.12. (Wake up/Levantarse) _______________________ a las 11 de la manana.13. (Have/Tener) _____________________________________ tiempo libre.14. (Visit/Visitar) _________________________________ el museo de arte.15. (Go to bed/Acostarse) ________________________ a las 2 de la manana.16. (Enjoy/Disfrutar) _________________________ del sol y el buen tiempo.17. (Stay/Acomodarse) _________________________ en un hotel del centro.18. (Throw/Dar) _________________________________ una fiesta sorpresa.19. (Do/Hacer) ________________________________ las tareas de espanol.20. (See/Ver) _________________________________ una comedia al teatro.

PosttestYou would like to tell me the plans that you and your friend have together foryour spring break. For each sentence, write the appropriate form of the verbin Spanish that indicates the plans that you and your friend have.

This is an example in English: (Relax) We are going to relax in the Caribbean.

1. (Enjoy/Disfrutar) _______________________________ del sol y la brisa.2. (Go up/Subir) __________________________________al Machu Picchu.



3. (Enjoy/Divertirse) _________________________________ en la piscina.4. (Need/Necesitar) _______________________________ muchos dolares.5. (Have/Tener) _______________________________ experiencias nuevas.6. (Go to bed/Acostarse) ________________________ a las 5 de la manana.7. (Visit/Visitar) ___________________________________ la isla de Cuba.8. (Meet/Conocer) ________________________________ a muchas chicas.9. (Go/Ir) ___________________________________ a la discoteca a bailar.

10. (Spend/Pasar) _____________________________ unas horas en la playa.11. (Bathe/Banarse) ___________________________ en el oceano Atlantico.12. (Wake up/Levantarse) ___________________________ a las 3 de la tarde.13. (See/Ver) ___________________________________ una pelıcula al cine.14. (Have dinner/Cenar) ________________________________ con amigos.15. (Relax/Relajarse) ____________________________________ en el mar.16. (Stay/Acomodarse) ___________________________ en un apartamento.17. (Get ready/Prepararse) ___________________ para bailar por las noches.18. (Do/Hacer) ________________________________ las tareas de espanol.19. (Throw/Dar) _________________________________ una fiesta sorpresa.20. (Buy/Comprar) ________________________________ comida caribena.


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