The aim of this work was to study the relationship between working memory, sustained attention and explanatory inference generation in expository texts comprehension. To this end, 120 undergraduate students read two expository texts from natural sciences and completed an inference generation questionnaire, along with four verbal working memory tasks and two sustained attention tasks. The results showed that the executive component of verbal working memory has a direct effect on inference generation, while sustained attention and information storage in verbal working memory have an indirect effect mediated by the executive component. This supports the idea that individual differences in inference generation are related to individual differences in working memory, and also to individual differences in the ability to sustain attention.

Background: Reading fluency is the ability to read fast, accurate and with proper expression as well as comprehending what is read. This ability is expected to be a consolidated in High School. Main goal: The aim of this research is to show the results obtained when a Reading fluency scale designed ad hoc that includes aspects related to accuracy and prosodic was applied. Method: A sample of 39 students in the 1st year of secondary school responded to a reading aloud and comprehension task of two expository texts (1 and 2), one with punctuation (condition A) and one without punctuation (condition B), which were administered in a counterbalanced manner. Results: Fluency performance was compared according to the presentation condition of the texts (A and B), a percentile analysis and nine mixed variance analyses were performed, considering as an independent intersubject variable the fluenc...

Relative clause comprehension has been the object of numerous investigations in children, but few have been able to establish the stage in which it is acquired, and research in Spanish is scarce. The aim of this study is to compare the performance of Rioplatense Spanish-speaking children in the comprehension of relative clauses. For that purpose, a total of 105 children from three age groups: 6-7, 8-9, and 10-11 years old, respectively, were assessed with an oral comprehension task of subject and object relative clauses. Results show significant differences in the performance of each group. Children of all ages have difficulty understanding object relative clauses, while performance in subject relative clauses depends on the position of the subordinate clause.

The ability to estimate and discriminate quantities is of early onset in the development and prior to the acquisition of a symbolic numerical system. The performance on tasks of discrimination is modulated by the number ratio that differentiates the sets, so that smaller reasons result in slower and less effective comparisons. The objective of the present study is to analyze the precision and speed by which 4 and 6 year old children discriminate between two quantities based on the number ratio that distinguishes them. Method: a discrimination task of non-symbolic quantities (ad hoc) was given to 60 children from 4 and 6 years old in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. A mixed ANOVA design was carried out to analyze the amount of hits and reaction times (RT) according to age, and the number ratio that differentiates the groups. The Bonferroni contrast test was used to detect the differen...

Background: Mechanical reasoning (MR) is the ability to identify the components of a system and understand how they interact in order for the system to work. Different mechanical systems, such as those of wheels and gears, require different types of reasoning. Objective: This study seeks to analyze the relationship that working memory (WM) and processing speed (PS) have with MR. Method: One hundred seventy-three (173) university students were assessed through the DAT test which consisted of 30 MR problems, the symbol search subtest of the WAIS-III battery for assessing the PS, and the BIMET-V and BIMET-VE batteries to evaluate the WM verbal and visuospatial components. Results: Regression analyses showed that the proposed variables do not predict the performance in gear problems, while the visuospatial WM and the PS predict the performance in wheel problems. Discussion: The results sugge...