title: [Effects of focus on working memory].
abstract: Effects of focus on a target word during performance of the reading span test (RST) were investigated. A focus word in the sentence was defined as the most critical word with a core meaning to integrate the sentence. Two kinds of RST were compared. One was focus-RST (F-RST) in which the target word to be maintained was a focus word of the sentence. The other was a non-focus-RST (NF-RST) in which the target word was not a focus word of the sentence, although the sentence did contain a focus word. Results showed that RST scores were found to be higher for F-RST than for NF-RST. Moreover, the effect of focus was proved to be dominant for low span subjects. Intrusion errors also increased in NF-RST. Sentence length effect, however, was not found. The results showed that low span subjects had severe deficits in making and updating the focus, which is critical for sentence comprehension.
authors.affiliation: Psychological Laboratory, Department of Foreign Studies, Osaka University of Foreign Studies, Aomatani-higashi, Minoo 562-8558.
authors.forename: Mariko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Osaka
authors.forename: Yukiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nishizaki
authors.forename: Mie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Komori
authors.forename: Naoyuki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Osaka
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D011932:Reading