The Interaction Between Phonological and Semantic Processing in Reading Chinese Characters

The contemporary models of visual word recognition reached a consensus on a cooperative division of labor between phonological and semantic processing. We examine how reading is influenced by the interaction of two processing in Chinese character reading since the ideographic property of the Chinese writing system is perfectly suitable to address this issue. The current study investigated whether Chinese character reading requires the interaction between orthography-to-phonology consistency and semantic processing of the whole character (imageability, Experiment 1) or the semantic radical (transparency, Experiment 2). Experiment 1 showed a significant effect of the consistency and a marginal effect of the imageability, but no interaction between the two. Experiment 2 found a significant effect of the semantic transparency and its interaction with phonological consistency, where the transparent effect was significant for inconsistent characters but not for consistent ones. The current finding provided direct evidence of the interplay between phonological and semantic processing and shed light on the language-general reading model

Task by stimulus interactions in brain responses during Chinese character processing

In the visual word recognition literature, it is well understood that various stimulus effects interact with behavioral task. For example, effects of word frequency are exaggerated and effects of spelling-to-sound regularity are reduced in the lexical decision task, relative to reading aloud. Neuroimaging studies of reading often examine effects of task and stimulus properties on brain activity independently, but potential interactions between task demands and stimulus effects have not been extensively explored. To address this issue, we conducted lexical decision and symbol detection tasks using stimuli that varied parametrically in their word-likeness, and tested for task by stimulus class interactions. Interactions were found throughout the reading system, such that stimulus selectivity was observed during the lexical decision task, but not during the symbol detection task. Further, the pattern of stimulus selectivity was directly related to task difficulty, so that the strongest brain activity was observed to the most word-like stimuli that required "no" responses, whereas brain activity to words, which elicit rapid and accurate "yes" responses were relatively weak. This is in line with models that argue for task-dependent specialization of brain regions, and contrasts with the notion of task-independent stimulus selectivity in the reading system. (c) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

HEMISPHERIC LATERALIZATION FOR LANGUAGE EXAMINED WITH CHINESE CHARACTERS

The extent and nature of right cerebral hemisphere (RH) contributions to language processing remain a matter of debate. Exploiting unique features of Chinese characters, two studies investigated two questions regarding the RH’s potential contributions: (1) Does the RH contribute preferentially to visual-word-form analysis of radical configurations in Chinese characters, independently of low spatial frequencies? (2) Does the RH contribute preferentially to semantic processing by accessing meaning directly through Chinese orthography, bypassing phonology? Participants were 35 right-handed native Chinese adults with at least high-school education. Participants completed both studies which incorporated divided visual field presentation of stimuli. The first study employed a radical configuration matching task, with lateralized presentation of the second stimulus in each stimulus pair to be matched. Each pair was presented in a normal or a low spatial frequency condition. Results showed that the RH demonstrates some specialty in processing radical configurations, and that radical configuration and spatial frequency are processed as two independent entities. The frequency of exposure to different types of radical configurations was proposed as a modulator of the RH’s involvement. The second study incorporated a primed lexical decision task, with two types of primes: those conveying only semantic information and those conveying both semantic and phonological information. Target characters held weak semantic associations with both types of primes. Lateralized stimulus presentation was used for the primes. Results suggested that the RH accesses semantic information through orthography regardless of whether phonological information is embedded. The first study challenges the assumed relationship between the RH and radical configuration processing via the presumed connection to low spatial frequencies. The findings also lead to new questions, including whether exposure effects are potential modifiers of the RH’s involvement. The second study identifies a role for the RH in accessing semantics via orthography directly. This work leads to questions about the specific neural underpinnings of this route, and about whether level of Chinese script knowledge modulates this route’s accessibility. Taken together, the results of these studies and the future work they will spur will continue to advance our understanding of the RH’s critical role in language processing