Abstract: The present study explored how the familiarity of distractions and individual cognitive styles influenced text reading by using familiar and unfamiliar words. The study included two stages. In the first stage, participants with different cognitive styles read eight passages and then answered three questions. In the second stage, participants studied a list of 16 words for free recall, consisting of 8 previously familiar distracting words, 8 new familiar words, or consisting of 8 previously unfamiliar distracting words, 8 new unfamiliar words. Half of the participants were cued about the relevance of previous distractions and text reading before recalling the words in the memory test. The results are as follows: the influence of the familiar words was significantly higher than that of the unfamiliar words for field independent participants, while there were no significant differences for field dependent participants. Furthermore, the number of old words (previously distractions) recalled was significantly higher than that of new words in the cued memory task for both familiar and unfamiliar words. The results indicate that: (1) compared to field dependent individuals, field independent individuals are more easily influenced by familiar distractions in text reading; (2) familiar words could lead more significant interference than unfamiliar ones in reading, possibly due to the activation of individual experience rather than the processing priority of familiar words.

Key words: interference, familiarity, field dependence, field independence, text reading