Working memory plays an important role in complex cognitive tasks. For example, in the context of reading, it has been argued that working memory provides a workspace for maintenance and integration of different text units and relevant background knowledge. However, the amount of information that needs to held in mind is often at odds with the very restricted capacity traditionally posited by models of working memory. Moreover, direct evidence concerning the role of working memory during reading is ambiguous and largely based on correlational studies. To address these issues, we conducted two dual-task studies in which we manipulated working memory capacity during reading, and examined the effects of working memory capacity on the processes (rather than the products) of reading comprehension. Both experiments focused specifically on the process of coherence monitoring, a crucial component of comprehension, by comparing participants’ responses (i.e., reading times) for texts with and without inconsistencies. Moreover, in Experiment 2 we additionally examined the interaction between working memory load and availability of information by varying textual distance between inconsistent sentences. Both experiments showed that the external working memory load interfered with coherence monitoring, as reflected by reduced responses to inconsistencies. Experiment 2 further revealed that, in addition to working memory capacity, coherence monitoring is influenced by availability. Interestingly, the effect of availability was only significant in the no-load conditions, suggesting that load reduces the inconsistency effect regardless of availability. Together, these findings suggest that although readers may progress through a text relatively effortlessly by using activated portions of long-term memory, the process of coherence monitoring requires at least some working memory capacity.

工作记忆在复杂的认知任务中起着重要的作用。例如，在阅读的背景下，有人认为工作记忆为不同文本单元和相关背景知识的维护和集成提供了一个工作空间。但是，需要牢记的信息量通常与工作记忆模型传统上非常有限的容量不一致。而且，关于工作记忆在阅读过程中的作用的直接证据是模棱两可的，并且主要基于相关研究。为了解决这些问题，我们进行了两项双重任务研究，其中我们在阅读过程中操纵了工作记忆容量，并研究了工作记忆容量对阅读理解过程（而不是产品）的影响。这两个实验都通过比较参与者对有或没有不一致的文本的回答（即阅读时间）来专门研究一致性监控的过程，这是理解的关键组成部分。此外，在实验2中，我们还通过更改不一致句子之间的文本距离来检查工作记忆负荷与信息可用性之间的相互作用。两项实验均表明，外部工作内存负载会干扰一致性监控，这反映在对不一致的响应减少时。实验2进一步表明，除了工作内存容量外，一致性监控还受可用性的影响。有趣的是，可用性的影响仅在空载条件下才有意义，这表明无论可用性如何，负载都会减少不一致的影响。