Phonological coding in reading comprehension: The importance of individual differences

Abstract

Abstract In two experiments, texts were presented word by word at a fixed pace to subjects high or low in test anxiety, under various concurrent interference conditions: no interference, articulatory suppression, finger tapping, unattended meaningful speech, reversed (meaningless) speech and nonword (meaningless) speech. High-anxiety subjects produced overt articulation more frequently than low-anxiety subjects, especially in the speech conditions. There was an interaction between anxiety and interference on comprehension performance: Conditions thought to interfere with phonological coding (i.e. articulatory suppression and nonword speech) were detrimental to comprehension for high but not for low-anxiety subjects; in contrast, there were no differences in comprehension performance as a function of anxiety under conditions causing no (proper) phonological interference (i.e. no interference, finger tapping and reversed speech). There were mixed results in the meaningful speech condition, partly attributab...