Construction of Spatial Mental Representation in Japanese Learners’ Listening: An Experimental Analysis using Manipulation of Verbal and Visuo-spatial Working Memory Capacities

We investigated the effects of verbal and visuo-spatial working memory (WM) capacities on spatial mental representation in second language listening by manipulating the length of the materials. In the experiment, an advanced class of Chinese learners learning Japanese were separated into four groups according to their verbal and visuo-spatial WM capacities. The learners were required to react to a judgement task in which they must judge whether the picture shown on the computer matches the sentences they had listened to previously. Two or four sentences were used in each trial. The correct rate and reaction time were used as dependent variables. As a result, only the main effect of the length of the materials was observed, which suggests that for Japanese learners, constructing a spatial mental representation during listening becomes more difficult with the increased length of the sentences. The results of correct rate and reaction time did not show significant differences among learners with a large capacity for verbal and visuo-spatial WM or those with small capacity. A possible reason for this result is that the experimental materials were not very difficult for advanced learners; therefore, a certain amount of processing resources during task execution was distributed efficiently and appropriately between verbal and visuo-spatial WM

Effect of Teaching Expectancy on Essay Comprehension and Memorizing of an Advanced Class of Chinese Students Learning Japanese: An experimental test manipulating difficulty

This study analyzes the effect of teaching expectancy on the motivation of reading articles and examines what kind of articles can produce such an effect. This research aimed at advanced class of Chinese students learning Japanese, and the effect of the difficulty of the article on the expected effect of the article description is studied. By controlling the degree of difficulty of the article, and comparing the experimental group’s teaching expectancy and the control group’s summary expectancy, the following results were obtained. In the same relatively difficult article, the “teaching expectancy group” had a higher score than the “summary expectancy group.” In a simple article, the “summary expectancy group” had a tendency to score higher than the “teaching expectancy group.” It shows that when the article becomes moderately difficult, learners allocate metacognitive processing resources, carry out active reading, and promote literal article understanding and memorization

The Effect of Making Questions Reading Comprehension on Chinese Advanced Learners of Japanese Language: An experimental study comparing self-questioning and questioning for others

This study was designed to examine the effects of different types of questions produced during text reading on the comprehension and memorization of text of Chinese advanced Japanese language learners. The results showed that the question-and-answer group performed better than the question-only group: the former was able to focus their attention on the explicit textual information. At the same time, the question-and-answer group monitored and tried to understand their comprehension of the text, which also included the viewpoints of others. Thus, it was found that creating questions and answers facilitated the formation of comprehension representations

Inhibitory Function in the Processes of Consecutive Interpreting between Chinese and Japanese

This study examined an inhibitory function in the processes of consecutive interpreting between Chinese and Japanese. In the experiment, the difficulty of the source language (SL) was manipulated for an advanced class of Chinese students learning Japanese as second language. The results revealed the following. (1) Inhibitory function affects interpreting performance overall, but its effect is more stable in the consecutive interpreting from Japanese to Chinese than that from Chinese to Japanese. (2) In the case of higher SL difficulty, the effect of inhibitory function pronounced in both directions of consecutive interpreting. (3) In the case of lower SL difficulty, the effect of inhibitory function is more pronounced in the consecutive interpreting from Japanese to Chinese than that from Chinese to Japanese. These results indicated that the inhibitory function in the interpreting processes is constrained by the difficulty of SL and may depend on the direction of the consecutive interpreting, namely whether from native language to second language or vice versa

The Spacing Effect in Free Recall and Oral Production of a Sequence of Japanese Sentences in Chinese Learners of Japanese

The spacing effect refers to the finding that learning events are better remembered when they are presented in a spaced condition than in a massed condition. This study examined the spacing effect on memorization and oral production in Chinese learners of Japanese. Thirty-two Chinese-speaking intermediate-level learners were asked to memorize texts consisting of three related Japanese sentences. The massed and spaced conditions were used to analyze the performance of free recall and oral production tests. The results showed that no spacing effect was found in the free recall or oral production tests. Thus, the spacing effect is suggested to not occur when memorized materials with close connections are presented

Learning Strategies of Japanese Kanji-Words in Beginning Chinese Learners of Japanese : The effect of orthographic and phonological similarities between Chinese and Japanese

In this present study, we investigated the learning strategies of Japanese Kanji-Words in beginning Chinese learners of Japanese language. The listening dictation test and learning strategies of Japanese Kanji-Words were applied. The inhibitory effects of the orthographic similarity and the facilitatory effects of the phonological similarity were observed in the listening dictation test. When Chinese learners of Japanese language listen to Japanese Kanji-Words, phonological similarities between Chinese language and Japanese language are used to understand the meaning of a word as very important clues. The beginning learners who learn Japanese Kanji-Words use Chinese pronunciation is more than half. However, compared with the results of the listening dictation test such learners who don’t use Chinese pronunciation, may be able to use Japanese Kanji-Word pronunciation in Chinese unconsciously. In order to reduce the negative effects of native language, by learners themselves from an early stage, will be important to clarify the orthographic and phonological similarities or dissimilarities between Chinese language and Japanese language

The lexical processing of Japanese collocations by Chinese Japanese-as-a-Foreign-Language learners: An experimental study by manipulating the presentation modality, semantic transparency, and translational congruency

IntroductionResearch on collocations has become an essential issue in L2 acquisition and cognitive psychology. Previous studies have mainly focused on phonographic languages such as English, Swedish, and German, and primarily discussed the effect of semantic transparency and translational congruency. However, these studies have lacked (1) an analysis of the interactions between presentation modalities (visual vs. auditory) and the semantic transparency and translational congruency, and (2) a discussion of an ideographic language, such as Chinese and Japanese.MethodsWe conducted an experiment with 36 Chinese Japanese-as-a-Foreign-Language learners to examine the processing of Japanese collocations. In the experiment, we manipulated the presentation modality, semantic transparency, and translational congruency during a lexical judgment task.ResultsData analysis using linear mixed-effects models revealed the following. (1) In both conditions of semantic transparency and translational congruency, the auditory presentation was associated with longer reaction times than the visual presentation. (2) In the visual presentation condition, neither semantic transparency nor translational congruency showed significant effects. (3) In the auditory presentation condition, the reaction time for collocations with high semantic transparency tended to be longer than that for collocations with medium semantic transparency and significantly longer than that for collocations with low semantic transparency. The reaction time for collocations with congruent translation was longer than that for collocations with incongruent translation.DiscussionThese results support the dual-route model of Japanese collocational processing by Chinese Japanese-as-a-Foreign-Language learners. Our findings suggest that whether the analytic or holistic processing dominates is closely related to the learners’ knowledge of Chinese and Japanese Kanji words and strongly influenced by the presentation modality, semantic transparency, and translational congruency

Associative Relationship between Lexical and Conceptual Representations in Chinese Proficient Learners of Japanese Language : An Experimental Study Using Picture-word Stroop Naming Task

Two experiments were carried out to investigate the associative relationship between lexical and conceptual representations in Chinese proficient learners of Japanese language by using the picture-word Stroop naming task. In experiment 1, the subjects were required to name pictures in the second language while ignoring printed Kanji (Japanese ideogram) words. In experiment 2, other subjects were asked to name pictures in the native language while ignoring printed Kanji words. The results of two experiments suggested the following three points. The first is that when naming pictures, semantic processing of Japanese Kanji words is also performed at the same time. The second point is that in the mental lexicon of proficient learners, lexical and conceptual representations of Chinese-Japanese cognates and homographs were linked in the same formation degree. The third is that when the input language and output language were different in the picture naming task, Stroop interference could arise at both the semantic processing stage and the production stage

Visual Recognition of Japanese Kanji-Words on Korean Students Leaning Japanese in Advanced-level : Using lexical decision task of words with pre-presentation of Japanese sentences

The purpose of this study is to investigate visual recognition of Japanese kanji-word processing on advanced-level Korean students learning Japanese. In the experiment, high-constraining of sentences were used as pre-presentation conditions, and orthographic and phonological similarities between the Korean and Japanese language were treated as independent variables, while the reaction times from the visual lexical decision task were assigned as the dependent variables. The result shows that the facilitation effect was only observed in the phonological similarities. Indicating that no facilitation effect in the orthographic similarities was found, in contrast to Yanamoto (2015) findings based on the context exclusion word recognition process of advanced-level Korean students learning Japanese. In a word recognition process of Korean students in sentence context, the effect of phonological similarities of the words was significant as well as the effect of context