View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Waterloo's Institutional Repository How Reading Difficulty Influences Mind-Wandering: The Theoretical Importance of Measuring Interest by Noah Forrin A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfilment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2016 © Noah Forrin 2016 i Author’s Declaration I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii Abstract In many situations, increasing task difficulty decreases thoughts that are unrelated to the task (i.e., mind-wandering; see Smallwood & Schooler, 2006, for a review). However, Feng, D’Mello, and Graesser (2013) recently reported a discrepant finding in the context of reading. They showed that increasing the objective reading difficulty of passages (by decreasing word frequency and complicating sentence structure) actually increased mind-wandering. The primary goal of this work was to gain insight into the mechanism that drives this positive relation between objective reading difficulty and mind-wandering. This effect is investigated over three chapters. Chapter 1 demonstrates that the effect of objective difficulty on mind-wandering is confounded by differences in passage section-length between easy and hard passages when they are presented one sentence at a time. Chapter 2 more broadly explores the possibility that distinctive processing influences subjective impressions of passage difficulty and interest (which may consequently influence mind-wandering). And Chapter 3 shows that mind-wandering increases over time spent reading, which may be related to decreasing subjective interest. This research builds to the conclusion that subjective interest is of central theoretical importance to research on difficulty and mind-wandering: A manipulation designed to influence the difficulty of a task may also influence participants’ subjective interest in the task, which may in turn influence their tendency to mind-wander. iii Acknowledgments I would like to thank my advisors, Daniel Smilek and Colin MacLeod for their continued guidance; Evan Risko for his valued feedback; and my talented team of RAs (Safa Bajwa, Zeynep Ermis, Grace Lin, Tasha McFarland, Amanda Nova, Mona Qutub, Brandon Stolz, Jane Szeto, and Julian Wang) for their help in collecting data. I am also grateful for the unwavering love and support of my parents, Adrian and Bert Forrin, and my partner, Emily Cyr. iv Table of Contents List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………............ vii List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………………… ix Chapter 1…………………………………………………………………………………………. 1 Experiment 1……………………………………………………………………….. ……. 8 Method…………………………………………………………………....... ……. 9 Results……………………………………………………………………........... 12 Discussion………………………………………………………………………. 18 Experiment 2……………………………………………………………………………. 20 Method………………………………………………………………………….. 21 Results……………………………………………………………………........... 22 Discussion……………………………………………………………………..... 24 Experiment 3……………………………………………………………………………. 26 Method………………………………………………………………………….. 27 Results……………………………………………………………………........... 28 Discussion………………………………………………………………………. 34 Experiment 4…………………………………………………………………………..... 35 Method………………………………………………………………………...... 36 Results…………………………………………………………………………... 37 Discussion…………………………………………………………………......... 41 Experiment 5……………………………………………………………………………. 43 Method………………………………………………………………………...... 44 Results……………………………………………………………………........... 44 Discussion……………………………………………………………………..... 50 Experiment 6…………………………………………………………………………..... 52 Method………………………………………………………………………...... 52 Results ……………………………………………………………………........... 53 Discussion………………………………………………………………………. 57 General Discussion……………………………………………………………………... 58 v Chapter 2………………………………………………………………………………………... 64 Experiment 7……………………………………………………………………………. 67 Method………………………………………………………………………….. 68 Results…………………………………………………………………………... 68 Discussion………………………………………………………………………. 76 Chapter 3……………………………………………………………………………………....... 80 Results…………………………………………………………………………………... 84 Discussion………………………………………………………………………………. 99 Concluding Remarks…………………………………………………………………………... 103 References………………………………………………………………………………........... 106 Appendix A…………………………………………………………………………………..... 115 Appendix B……………………………………………………………………………………. 120 Appendix C……………………………………………………………………………………. 123 Appendix D……………………………………………………………………………………. 125 Appendix E……………………………………………………………………………………. 129 Appendix F…………………………………………………………………………………….. 130 vi List of Tables Table 1. Passage attributes………………………………………………………….......... 10 Table 2. Mean mind-wandering rates in Experiments 1-4……………………………...... 13 Table 3. Mean correctly answered comprehension questions in Experiments 1-4...... …... 14 Table 4. Mean subjective ratings in Experiments 1-2……………………………............. 15 Table 5. Correlation coefficients in Experiment 1 (mean difference scores)……………. 17 Table 6. Correlation coefficients in Experiment 2 (mean difference scores)…………..... 23 Table 7. Mean subjective ratings in Experiments 3-4……………………………………. 30 Table 8. Correlation coefficients in Experiment 3 (mean difference scores)……………. 33 Table 9. Correlation coefficients in Experiment 4 (mean difference scores)……………. 40 Table 10. Mean mind-wandering rates in Experiments 5-6……………………………….. 45 Table 11. Mean correctly answered comprehension questions in Experiments 5-6………. 46 Table 12. Mean subjective ratings in Experiments 5-6……………………………………. 47 Table 13. Correlation coefficients in Experiment 5 (mean difference scores)……………. 48 Table 14. Correlation coefficients in Experiment 6 (mean difference scores)……………. 56 Table 15. Mean mind-wandering rates in Experiment 7…………………………………... 69 Table 16. Mean correctly answered comprehension questions in Experiment 7…............. 70 Table 17. Mean subjective ratings in Experiment 7……………………………...........….. 72 Table 18. Correlation coefficients in Experiment 7 (mean difference scores)……………. 73 Table 19. Mean mind-wandering rates over blocks………………….……………………. 88 Table 20. Mean correctly answered comprehension questions over blocks in Experiments 1 and 3…………………………………………………………...... 89 Table 21. Mean writing interest ratings over blocks in Experiments 1 and 3……………... 90 Table 22. Mean topic interest ratings over blocks in Experiments 1 and 3……………...... 91 vii Table 23. Mean writing difficulty ratings over blocks in Experiments 1 and 3…………... 92 Table 24. Mean topic difficulty ratings over blocks in Experiments 1 and 3……………... 93 Table 25. Mean reading times over blocks in Experiments 1 and 3………………............. 94 Table 26. Correlation coefficients between simple slopes in Experiments 1 and 3……….. 97 Table F1. Mean mind-wandering rates for the first and second halves of passages in Experiments 1 and 3…………………………………………………………… 132 viii List of Figures Figure D1. Mean mind-wandering rates over passage block for the pooled sentence presentation data (Experiments 1 and 3)………………………………………. 125 Figure D2. Mean proportion of correctly answered comprehension questions over passage block for the pooled sentence presentation data (Experiments 1 and 3)………. 125 Figure D3. Mean writing interest ratings over passage block for the pooled sentence presentation data (Experiments 1 and 3)……………………………………..... 126 Figure D4. Mean topic interest ratings over passage block for the pooled sentence presentation data (Experiments 1 and 3)………………………………………. 126 Figure D5. Mean writing difficulty ratings over passage block for the pooled sentence presentation data (Experiments 1 and 3)………………………………………. 127 Figure D6. Mean topic difficulty ratings over passage block for the pooled sentence presentation data (Experiments 1 and 3)………………………………………. 127 Figure D7. Mean reading times over passage block for the pooled sentence presentation data (Experiments 1 and 3)…………………………………………………….. 128 ix Chapter 1 Does objective difficulty affect mind-wandering? Students are all too familiar with the realization that their thoughts have come untethered from their coursework and drifted elsewhere. Such instances of mind-wandering have been found to impair reading comprehension (Franklin, Smallwood, & Schooler, 2011; Feng, D’Mello, & Graesser, 2013; Reichle, Reineberg, & Schooler, 2010; Schooler, Reichle, & Halpern, 2004; Smallwood, Fishman, & Schooler, 2007; Smallwood, McSpadden, & Schooler, 2008; Unsworth & McMillan, 2013). Given that reading comprehension is integral to learning throughout one’s education, it is important for research to elucidate factors that influence mind- wandering while reading. This present work focused on two such factors: difficulty and interest. Reading comprehension is but one of many domains in which mind-wandering is costly (see Mooneyham & Schooler, 2013, for a review). In the laboratory, mind-wandering impairs attention (e.g., Manly, Robertson, Galloway, & Hawkins, 1999; McVay & Kane, 2009; McVay & Kane, 2012a; Seli, Cheyne, & Smilek, 2013; Smallwood, Beach, Schooler, & Handy, 2008; Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997), oddball detection (Barron, Riby, Greer, & Smallwood, 2011), visual search (Thomson, Seli, Besner, Smilek, 2014), and random number generation (Teasdale et al., 1995). Mind-wandering also impairs lecture comprehension (e.g., Risko, Anderson, Sarwal, Engelhardt, &