1　Introduction

This section discusses the research background and significance of integrating Chinese culture into reading passages of English tests, pointing out that current research focuses more on textbook compilation with less attention to the testing field. Existing empirical studies have shown that cultural integration has a positive impact on reading comprehension outcomes, but there is a lack of in-depth exploration of its effects on cognitive processes. This study intends to use the think-aloud method to compare and analyze the mechanisms through which British/American culture and Chinese culture passages affect learners' cognitive processing activities.

2　Literature Review

This section reviews the theoretical framework of reading cognitive processing activities and the current research status on the influence of textual cultural characteristics on reading comprehension. Regarding reading cognitive processing, based on Khalifa & Weir's (2009) model, reading cognitive processing activities encompass three levels: lower-order cognition, higher-order cognition, and metacognitive activities, with learners employing cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies to complete comprehension tasks. Regarding the influence mechanisms of textual cultural characteristics, existing research has mainly been conducted from two levels: textual structure and textual content. This study focuses on the textual content level, adopting Adaskou et al.'s (1990) cultural classification framework to define cultural characteristics from social, semantic, and pragmatic dimensions. In terms of research methods, the "cultural nativization" approach effectively controls interference from textual language and structure variables by replacing foreign cultural elements with learners' native cultural expressions. Existing research has shown that cultural nativization has positive effects on inferential comprehension, but current studies have focused more on reading comprehension outcomes with insufficient exploration of cognitive processing processes, and lack comparative analyses of learners at different proficiency levels as well as detailed examination of specific cognitive activities at different reading levels. Based on this, this study employs the think-aloud method to explore lower-order cognitive processing, higher-order cognitive processing, and metacognitive activities of English learners at different proficiency levels when reading passages with different cultural characteristics.

3　Research Design

This study employed purposive sampling to select 12 second-year university students as participants, divided into low, intermediate, and high proficiency levels based on their CET-4 scores, and randomly assigned to two groups to read British/American culture and Chinese culture passages respectively. Experimental materials were selected as two types of passages with different cultural characteristics. The researcher referred to Alptekin's "cultural nativization" method to construct a nativization framework, replacing explicit cultural elements in British/American culture passages with Chinese cultural elements while retaining deep cultural concepts that were difficult to nativize, and verified the comparability of the two types of passages in textual features using the Coh-Metrix tool. Data collection employed the think-aloud method, including three steps: training, formal experiment, and retrospective interview, ultimately forming over 120,000 words of transcribed text. Data analysis used content analysis, coding reading strategies into cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies, and corresponding them to lower-order cognitive processing, higher-order cognitive processing, and metacognitive monitoring activities according to Khalifa & Weir's reading cognitive process model. Inter-rater reliability was ensured through independent coding by two coders and discussion, and chi-square tests were finally used to analyze group differences in strategy use frequency.

4　Results and Discussion

This section discusses the influence of textual cultural characteristics on lower-order cognitive processing, higher-order cognitive processing, and metacognitive activities of English learners at different proficiency levels. Regarding lower-order cognitive processing, low-proficiency learners in the British/American culture group used vocabulary comprehension and propositional meaning construction strategies significantly more frequently than those in the Chinese culture group, as their unfamiliarity with British/American cultural elements increased vocabulary cognitive load; while no significant differences were found between the two groups for intermediate and high-proficiency learners, indicating that literal comprehension is mainly driven by L2 proficiency. Regarding higher-order cognitive processing, learners at all three proficiency levels in the Chinese culture group used more strategies, particularly excelling in constructing situational representations and textual representations, as familiar culture can effectively activate background knowledge schemata; high-proficiency learners actually used strategies less frequently than intermediate-proficiency learners, possibly because their processing was more implicit; low-proficiency learners dynamically fluctuated between successful and erroneous inferences due to vocabulary knowledge constraints, confirming the "linguistic threshold hypothesis." Regarding metacognitive activities, low and intermediate-proficiency learners in the British/American culture group used strategies more frequently, but these were mostly compensatory strategies under cultural comprehension obstacles; no significant differences were found between the two groups for high-proficiency learners, as some monitoring strategies had become automated. Overall findings indicate that L2 learners' cognitive processing concentrates at lower levels, Chinese culture passages can promote higher-order cognitive processing, and it is recommended to integrate Chinese culture into reading materials to optimize comprehension effects.

5　Conclusion

This study explored the influence of English textual cultural characteristics on cognitive processing of learners at different proficiency levels, finding that low-proficiency learners tended to use lower-order cognitive strategies when reading British/American culture passages, while all learners employed more higher-order cognitive strategies when reading Chinese culture passages. Based on this, the study recommends that test designers organically integrate Chinese culture into reading passages, select passages with cross-cultural commonality, and appropriately increase propositional requirements for inferential comprehension, to promote students' use of higher-order cognitive strategies and deep-level reading comprehension. The study also acknowledges limitations including not examining implicit cultural characteristics and not distinguishing between language and cultural knowledge levels.