Recognition of Japanese Kana Words in Priming Tasks

Abstract

The processes of lexical access in two types of Kana (Japanese syllabic scripts), Hiragana and Katakana, were studied by means of lexical decision and naming experiments. Each target word was preceded by a word that was either related or unrelated semantically. The semantic priming of target words facilitated performance in both lexical decision and naming for Katakana words that were conventionally written in Katakana (e.g., foreign loanwords are normally written in Katakana). In contrast, semantic priming facilitated only lexical decision for these words written in Hiragana. These results suggest that (1) for foreign loanwords written in Katakana, lexical decision and naming are influenced by the internal lexicon and (2) for foreign loanwords written in Hiragana, naming is not strongly influenced by the internal lexicon. This supports the notion that lexical access of some Kana (phonologically shallow orthography) words can be achieved without phonological recoding.