Attention can operate on semantic objects defined by individual Chinese characters

Abstract

Attention can select perceptual objects, but it is less clear whether attention can operate on objects defined by higher level cognition, such as semantic associations. Recent studies have shown that attention may be based on objects defined by Chinese two-character compound words, suggesting that attention can operate on semantic objects. In the present study, object-based attention (OBA) effect was investigated at the level of individual Chinese characters, and the role of character structure and radical order in OBA was explored by using a spatial cueing paradigm. In Experiment 1, we found OBA effect for conditions that had legal radical order, but not for other conditions in which the radical order information was disrupted. Character structure, however, had no influence on the OBA effect. In Experiment 2, we observed OBA effect for all conditions after enhancing the radical order and character structure information by adding perceptual cues. The results extend previous findings of a “semantic object”-based attention effect from the two-character word level to the individual character level. Moreover, we found that radical order but not character structure was important for this semantic OBA effect. We conclude that visual attention can be based on semantic objects at the level of individual characters, and that the development of semantic objects is affected by the perceptual grouping of the radicals.