Processing of anaphoric devices in young skilled and less skilled comprehenders: Differences in metacognitive monitoring

This experiment investigated metacognitive monitoring in the processing of anaphors in 10-year-old skilled and less skilled comprehenders. Two tasks were used with expository texts. The direct self-evaluation task was carried out with consistent texts in which target anaphors were either repeated noun phrases or pronouns. Subjects had to read and to evaluate their own comprehension on a 6-point scale. After reading, subjects answered multiple-choice questions designed to test the processing of anaphors. In the inconsistency detection task, target anaphors were either repeated noun phrases or inconsistent noun phrases. Subjects had to read and detect inconsistencies. After reading, they answered multiple-choice questions. In both tasks, on-line measures (reading times for units containing target anaphors and for subsequent units, and look-backs) were collected in addition to off-line measures (ratings of comprehension, detection of inconsistencies and response to multiple-choice questions) in order to analyse indicators of implicit and explicit evaluation and revision activities. The results from the two tasks converged: less skilled comprehenders showed deficiencies in monitoring on measures of implicit and explicit evaluation and revision. Patterns of reading times revealed that less skilled comprehenders were sensitive to the difficulties in processing pronouns in the self-evaluation task and also sensitive to the lack of text cohesion in the inconsistency detection task. However, this sensitivity was weak and unable to trigger explicit activities. These results were interpreted in the framework of Karmiloff-Smith's (1986) model.