Effects of neighborhood size and kanji character frequency on lexical decision of Japanese kanji compound words

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to make a clear distinction between the effects of neighborhood size (Coltheart, Davelaar, Jonasson, & Besner, 1977) and that of kanji character frequency on the processing of two kanji compound words (jukugo). Kanji characters found in many compound words tend to be frequent, so neighborhood size of jukugo and the character frequency of the component kanji of these jukugo tend to be interrelated. In this study, the effect of neighborhood size on jukugo with medium subjective frequency was investigated controlling kanji character frequency. In an experiment using a lexical decision task with 30 participants, neighborhood size, front kanji character frequency, and rear kanji character frequency of jukugo were manipulated. The results showed that both the neighborhood size and the kanji character frequency affected the lexical decision of jukugo. The fact that there was no interaction between front and rear kanji character frequencies suggests that front and rear characters of jukugo with medium frequency were processed in a serial fashion.