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Introduction
Making sense of everyday input demands processing in working memory (Logie et al., 2021), the system held responsible for processing and maintaining information temporarily for carrying out complex cognitive tasks (Baddeley et al., 2021; Cowan et al., 2021). In addition, processing demands in working memory (WM) are prone to increasing when performing two complex tasks simultaneously (Azevedo et al., 2022; Baddeley et al., 2021). A clear-cut example of a complex cognitive task is comprehending a text, given that readers must manipulate an array of information in WM, involving both processing and storage, in order to construct a coherent mental representation of the text being read (van den Broek & Kendeou, 2022). More specifically, readers must keep active the theme of the text, representation of the text situation, and the preceded ideas from the text whilst making sense of the current idea from the text (Just & Carpenter, 1992). Such complexity is increased when reading in a second language (L2) in a digital format (DeStefano & LeFevre, 2007; Salmerón et al., 2018).
L2 reading is believed to be more cognitively demanding compared to L1 reading by monolinguals because it involves joint activation of both dominant and non-dominant language systems (Bialystok et al., 2012). For bilinguals, even though the L2 may also be activated during L1 reading (Kroll et al., 2021), the L1 tends to be the dominant language, and overall, bilinguals are typically more proficient in L1 than in L2. Consequently, a lower degree of automaticity may cause L2 reading to be more cognitively demanding than L1 reading, even for bilinguals. L2 proficiency interacts with WMC, in the sense that more proficient L2 users lessen the WM burden because they process linguistic and propositional aspects of a text efficiently and automatically, with minimal strain on their working memory (Alptekin & Erçetin, 2010, p. 214). Given WM’s limited capacity, a relationship between WM capacity in L2 reading comprehension is expected and has been observed in various studies (Linck et al., 2014). Reading in a digital environment is expected to further increase cognitive demands, as it requires navigating multiple sources, evaluating their reliability, and integrating information to construct a coherent representation (DeStefano & LeFevre, 2007; Wu, 2020). Thus, L2 digital reading, by bilinguals, can be considered more...