工作記憶與華語理解能力之相關性

The Relationship between Working Memory and Chinese Language Comprehension Skills

「工作記憶」是重要的認知機制之一，掌管資訊的即時儲存與處理。 本文探討工作記憶對華語聽力、閱讀表現的影響，實驗對象為71 名大學 國際生，先以閱讀廣度測驗評估其工作記憶能力；而後以聽力、閱讀測驗 測量其華語理解能力，並考察四種推論複雜度對工作記憶負擔的影響。實 驗資料以三因子變異數分析及線性迴歸統計分析後發現，中級華語階段, 工作記憶與閱讀表現有顯著正相關，但與聽力無甚相關；至於高級華語階 段，工作記憶對閱讀、聽力的影響則不顯著。當推論複雜度提高時，對中 級與高級的理解表現都形成負面影響，中級組得分下滑尤其顯著。本文據 此針對中級華語教學發展了強化工作記憶的活動，並提出在學習內容中降 低推論複雜度的多種方法。

Working memory is one of the cognitive brain mechanisms which manages instant information storage and processing. This article discusses the development of Chinese listening and reading skills under the influence of working memory. 71 foreign students were recruited in our research, whose working memory capacity was evaluated with a reading span task. A listening and reading comprehension test were later implemented to evaluate the students’ Chinese listening and reading skills along with the effect of inferential complexity on their working memory load. The results were analyzed using three-way mixed design ANOVA and linear regression, which demonstrated a correlation between listening and reading skills and working memory for students with an intermediate level of Chinese proficiency but not for those with a high level of Chinese proficiency. Furthermore, we found that higher inferential complexity of the context requires a higher working memory load, which results in a weaker listening and reading performance. Based on our findings, we propose a number of class activities for a more efficient use of working memory and various approaches to reduce the inferential complexity of course materials.