Jennifer Stiegler-Balfour presents latest research at 2011 Psychonomic Society Conference

Assistant Professor of Psychology Jennifer Stiegler-Balfour, Ph.D., presented the results of her new study on reading comprehension at the 2011 Psychonomic Society conference in Seattle. Dr. Stiegler-Balfour’s research assesses the relationship between reading comprehension skill and the ability to inhibit irrelevant information.

The results of her study, which was conducted during the spring and summer 2011, showed that less-skilled readers struggled significantly more to suppress irrelevant information than skilled readers. Furthermore, skilled readers were able to adopt a strategy, thereby allowing them to remain more cognitively flexible while less-skilled readers were unable to reduce their switch cost even after several trials.

Working memory capacity, the employment of reading skills and having sufficient background knowledge all play a role in comprehension; however, it remains unknown which cognitive processes distinguish skilled- from less-skilled readers. Dr. Stiegler-Balfour’s findings suggest that less-skilled readers’ low comprehension levels may be due to their inability to efficiently inhibit irrelevant information.

 

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