The orthographic differences between Chinese and English should influence the identification of words in the two languages. This study compared the identification of 50 Chinese and 50 comparable English words by 17 Chinese and 17 English participants, respectively. For English words, correlation and analysis of variance indicated significant effects for frequency and letter count. For Chinese words, the same statistical analyses yielded a significant frequency effect. Both analyses also showed stroke count of the first Chinese character was not related to accuracy of identification, while the two analyses yielded inconsistent results concerning relationships between the stroke count of the second character and accuracy of identification. These studies did not employ a masking stimulus, and 5 msec. were enough to activate sensory memory of most Chinese words, while 10 msec. were needed for most English words. These differences were significant by Wilcoxon rank-sum tests.
BloomfieldL. (1926) A set of postulates for the science of language. Language, 2, 153–164.
3.
CattellJ. (1886) The time taken up by cerebral operations. Mind, 11, 524–538.
4.
ChenH-C., & ShuH. (2001) Lexical activation during the recognition of Chinese characters: Evidence against early phonological activation. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8, 511–518.
5.
ChenY. P.AllportD. A., & MarshallJ. C. (1996) What are the functional orthographic units in Chinese word recognition: The stroke or the stroke pattern?The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology, 49, 1024–1043.
6.
ChengC-M. (1981) [Perception of Chinese characters]. Acta Psychologica Taiwanica, 23, 137–153. [in Chinese]
7.
ChengC-M. (1992) Lexical access in Chinese: Evidence from automatic activation of phonological information. In ChenH-C. & TzengO. J. L. (Eds.), Language processing in Chinese.Amsterdam: Elsevier. Pp. 67–91.
8.
FeldmanL. B., & SiokW. W. T. (1999) Semantic radicals in phonetic compounds: Implications for visual character recognition in Chinese. In WangJ.InhoffA. W., & ChenH-C. (Eds.), Reading Chinese script: A cognitive analysis.Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Pp. 19–35.
9.
FengG. (2006) Eye movement in Chinese reading: Basic processes and crosslinguistic differences. In LiP.TanL. H.BatesE., & TzengO. J. L. (Eds.), The handbook of East Asian psycholinguistics: Vol. 1. Chinese.New York: Cambridge Univer. Press. Pp. 187–194.
10.
FiebachC. J.FriedericiA. D.MüllerK., & von CramonD. Y. (2002) FMRI evidence for dual routes to the mental lexicon in visual word recognition. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14, 11–23.
11.
FrancisW. N., & KučeraH. (1982) Frequency analysis of English usage: Lexicon and grammar.Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
12.
FrostR.KatzL., & BentinS. (1987) Strategies for visual word recognition and orthographical depth: A multilingual comparison, journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 13, 104–115.
13.
GarnhamA. (2005) Language comprehension. In LambertsK. & GoldstoneR. L. (Eds.), Handbook of cognition.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pp. 241–254.
14.
GoughP. (1984) Word recognition. In PearsonP. D. (Ed.), BarrR.KamilM. L., & MosenthalP. (Section Eds.), Handbook of reading research.Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Pp. 225–253.
15.
GuM. D. (2000) Reconceptualizing the linguistic divide: Chinese and Western theories of the written sign. Comparative Literature Studies, 37, 101–124.
16.
HasuikeR.TzengO. J. L., & HuangD. (1986) Script effects and cerebral lateralization: The case of Chinese characters. In VaidJ. (Ed.), Language processing in bilinguals: Psycholinguistic and neuropsychological perspectives.Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Pp. 275–288.
17.
HayesE. (1987) The relationship between Chinese character complexity and character recognition, journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Associations, 22, 45–57.
18.
HechtJ. (2003) Oldest known Chinese script discovered. (Graphology). New Scientist, 178, (2392), 16.
19.
HoosainR. (1991) Psycholinguistic implications for linguistic relativity: A case study of Chinese.Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
20.
IshikawaK., & NobeS. (1998) Universal and language-specific aspects of word-memory processes: Japanese, Chinese, and English. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 87, 1219–1238.
21.
KatzL., & FrostR. (1992) The reading process is different from different orthographies: The orthographic depth hypothesis. In FrostR. & KatzL. (Eds.), Orthography, phonology, morphology, and meaning.Amsterdam: Elsevier. Pp. 67–84.
22.
Language Research Institute, Beijing Language Institute. (1986) [Modern Chinese frequency dictionary].Beijing: Beijing Language Institute Press, [in Chinese]
23.
LeongC. K.ChengP-W., & MulcahyR. (1987) Automatic processing of morphemic orthography by mature readers. Language and Speech, 30, 181–197.
24.
LiuI-M. (1999) Character and word recognition in Chinese. In WangJ.InhoffA. W., & ChenH-C. (Eds.), Reading Chinese script: A cognitive analysis.Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Pp. 173–187.
25.
LiuI-M.WuJ-T.SueI-R., & ChenS-C. (2006) Phonological mediation in visual word recognition in English and Chinese. In LiP.TanL-H.BatesE., & TzengO. J. L. (Eds.), The handbook of East Asian psycholinguistics: Vol. 1. Chinese.New York: Cambridge Univer. Press. Pp. 218–224.
26.
LiuX. (2000) Introduction to the pedagogy of teaching Chinese as a foreign language.Beijing: Beijing Language Univer. Press, [in Chinese]
27.
LukatelaG. L., & TurveyM. T. (1994) Visual lexical access is initially phonological: 1. Evidence from associative priming by words, homophones, and pseudohomophones, journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 107–128.
28.
MalmbergK. J.HoldenJ. E., & ShiffrinR. M. (2004) Modeling the effects of repetitions, similarity, and normative word frequency on old-new recognition and judgments of frequency, journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, 319–331.
29.
Marslen-WilsonW.TylerL. K.WakslerR., & OlderL. (1994) Morphology and meaning in the English mental lexicon. Psychological Review, 101, 3–33.
PaapK. R.NewsomeS. L., & NoelR. W. (1984) Word shape's in poor shape for the race to the lexicon, journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 10, 413–428.
32.
PerfettiC. A., & TanL. H. (1998) The time course of graphic, phonological, and semantic activation in Chinese character identification, journal of Experimental Psychology: LearninG., Memory, and Cognition, 24, 101–118.
33.
PollatsekA., & RaynerK. (2005) Reading. In LambertsK. & GoldstoneR. L. (Eds.), Handbook of cognition, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pp. 276–293.
34.
RastleK.DavisM. H., & NewB. (2004) The broth in my brother's brothel: Morpho-orthographic segmentation in visual word recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review: 11, 1090–1098.
35.
ReicherG. M. (1969) Perceptual recognition as a function of meaningfulness of stimulus material. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 81, 275–280.
36.
ReichleE. D., & PerfettiC. A. (2003) Morphology in word identification: A word experience model that accounts for morpheme frequency effects. Scientific Studies of Reading, 7, 219–237.
37.
SeidenbergM. S. (1985) The time course of phonological code activation in two writing systems. Cognition, 19, 1–30.
38.
SugishitaM., & OmuraK. (2001) Learning Chinese Characters may improve visual recall. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 93, 579–594.
39.
TaftM., & ZhuX. P. (1997) Submorphemic processing in reading Chinese. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 23, 761–775.
40.
TanL. H.HoosainR., & PengD-L. (1995) Role of early presemantic phonological code in Chinese character identification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 43–54.
41.
TanL. H., & PerfettiC. A. (1999) Phonological activation in visual identification of Chinese two-character words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 25, 382–393.
42.
TzengO. J. L.HungD. L.CottonB., & WangW. S-Y. (1979) Visual lateralisation effect in reading Chinese characters. Nature, 282, 499–501.
43.
Van OrdenG. C. (1987) A ROWS is a ROSE: Spelling, sound, and reading. Memory & Cognition, 15, 181–198.
44.
WheelerD. D. (1970) Processes in word recognition. Cognition Psychology, 1, 59–85.
45.
ZhaoJ. M. (Ed.). (2004) [An outline of teaching Chinese as a foreign language].Beijing: Commercial Press, [in Chinese]
46.
ZhouX. L., & Marslen-WilsonW. (1999) Sublexical processing in reading Chinese. In WangJ.InhoffA. W., & ChenH-C. (Eds.), Reading Chinese script: A cognitive analysis.Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Pp. 37–63.
47.
ZhouX. L.ShuH.BiY. C., & ShiD. R. (1999) Is there phonologically mediated access to lexical semantics in reading Chinese? In WangJ.InhoffA. W., & ChenH-C. (Eds.), Reading Chinese script: A cognitive analysis.Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Pp. 135–171.
48.
ZipfG. K. (1949) Human behavior and the principle of least effort: An introduction to human ecology.Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley.
