The Role of Working Memory in Attentional Allocation and Grammatical Development under Textually-enhanced, Unenhanced and No Captioning Conditions

This study investigated the extent to which individual differences in working memory (WM) mediate effects of captions with or without textual enhancement on attentional allocation and L2 grammatical development, whether development is influenced by WM absence captions. We employed a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest design, 72 Korean learners English randomly assigned three groups. The groups differed as they were exposed news clips captions, textually-enhanced unenhanced during treatment. measured eye-tracking methodology, assessed an oral production, written production fill-in-the-blank test. To assess various aspects WM, we measures phonological visual short-term (PSTM, VSTM) executive functions updating, task-switching, inhibitory control. found that, both groups, higher PSTM was associated gains. For enhanced group, also positively related gains Participants no-captions however, showed positive link between VSTM Attentional location only correlated updating ability under condition. These results, overall, indicate that can moderate attention components may play differential role captioning conditions.