What is the primary function of working memory in reading comprehension?

• A. Holding and manipulating information to understand and integrate text.
• B. Storing long-term trivia about books.
• C. Instinctively decoding words without processing meaning.
• D. Recalling exact punctuation from memory.

Answer: (A)

Working memory acts as the mental workspace you use while reading. Its main job is to hold pieces of text and related ideas in mind and to manipulate them so you can understand and connect the information as you go. As you read, you keep track of what’s being said, how ideas fit together, who is doing what, and how earlier sentences relate to later ones. This ongoing juggling allows you to form a coherent meaning of the text and to make inferences or predictions.

This differs from storing long-term trivia about books, which is more about knowledge you recall later; decoding words is about turning letters into sounds, not about maintaining and integrating ideas; and recalling exact punctuation isn’t essential to understanding what the text conveys. So the primary function is maintaining and processing information in the moment to understand and integrate the text.