Semantic activation of phonetic radicals in Chinese ideophonetic compound processing

In the current study, the effects of orthographic and phonological processing in Chinese character copying were investigated using a data set extracted from a database containing handwriting data of 856 stimuli; the responses of which were collected from 100 participants. To investigate the effect of character frequency, radical frequency, and phonetic regularity, 151 phonetic compounds were selected from the database because (1) their corresponding phonetic radicals were all free-standing characters, (2) their corresponding phonetic radicals were located at either the right or the bottom positions in the characters, and (3) no more than 10% of the participants made errors when copying these target characters. The results of the linear mixed effect models revealed that after controlling for inter-stroke distance (ISD) and stroke number, the inter-stroke intervals (ISIs) at the radical and logographeme boundaries were significantly longer, indicating significant orthographic processing in the immediate copying task that radicals and logographemes were used as writing units. In addition, shorter ISIs at the logographeme boundary associated with higher radical frequency, and shorter ISIs at the radical boundary associated with higher character frequency and regular characters, were observed. These observations indicated significant orthographic and phonological effects in the immediate copying task. Finally, the significant phonetic regularity effect observed also supported the notion that phonology contributes to Chinese character writing and that the effects of central processing, including character frequency and phonetic regularity, cascade over peripheral processing during Chinese character copying.

Most Chinese characters are compounds consisting of a semantic radical indicating semantic category and a phonetic radical cuing the pronunciation of the character. Controversy surrounds whether radicals also go through the same lexical processing as characters and, critically, whether phonetic radicals involve semantic activation since they can also be characters when standing alone. Here we examined these issues using the Stroop task whereby participants responded to the ink color of the character. The key finding was that Stroop effects were found when the character itself had a meaning unrelated to color, but contained a color name phonetic radical (e.g., “guess”, with the phonetic radical “cyan”, on the right) or had a meaning associated with color (e.g., “pity”, with the phonetic radical “blood” on the right which has a meaning related to “red”). Such Stroop effects from the phonetic radical within a character unrelated to color support that Chinese character recognition involves decomposition of characters into their constituent radicals; with each of their meanings including phonetic radicals activated independently, even though it would inevitably interfere with that of the whole character. Compared with the morphological decomposition in English whereby the semantics of the morphemes are not necessarily activated, the unavoidable semantic activation of phonetic radicals represents a unique feature in Chinese character processing.

<p id="C3">Phonograms are comprised of a semantic radical and a phonetic radical. The semantic radical usually implies the meaning of a character, while the phonetic radical offers a phonetic clue for the pronunciation of a character. Prior research has indicated that semantic and phonetic radicals each play an important role in phonogram cognition. However, the way in which the 2 kinds of radicals combine to influence both phonogram recognition and the activation process remains a controversial topic. Neighborhood size is one of the most important characteristics of radicals. The differences induced by the neighborhood size of radicals are called neighborhood effects. Prior studies employed various methods to investigate the roles of semantic and phonetic radicals on phonogram recognition and discovered that phonetic radicals have an advantage in phonogram processing. They also found that the neighborhood size of semantic radicals regulated the relative contributions of semantic and phonetic radicals. However, most of these researchers investigated the roles of semantic and phonetic radicals respectively. Only a few investigators have focused on the comprehensive role of semantic and phonetic radicals in character processing. This study attempted to investigate the comprehensive effect of semantic and phonetic radicals on phonogram recognition. <br/><p id="C60">Participants’ brain responses were recorded using event-related brain potentials. Four types of characters were selected: HH (phonogram comprised of a high-frequency semantic radical and a high-frequency phonetic radical), HL (phonogram comprised of a high-frequency semantic radical and a low-frequency phonetic radical), LL (phonogram comprised of a low-frequency semantic radical and a low-frequency phonetic radical), and LH (phonogram comprised of a low-frequency semantic radical and a high-frequency phonetic radical). A lexical decision task was adopted; the frequency of the entire character and the number of strokes were equivalent for all groups. <br/><p id="C70">The results showed that, for characters with high-frequency semantic radicals (HH and HL), the characters with high-frequency phonetic radicals (HH) elicited a larger P200 waveform component than the characters with low-frequency phonetic radicals (HL). However, for characters with low-frequency semantic radicals (LH and LL), there was no significant difference between the characters with high-frequency phonetic radicals (LH) and those with low-frequency phonetic radicals (LL). Characters with high-frequency phonetic radicals (HH and LH) elicited a larger N400 component than those with low-frequency phonetic radicals (HL and LL), and the N400 differences induced by the neighborhood size of phonetic radicals with high-frequency semantic radicals (HH and HL) were larger than those induced by characters with low-frequency semantic radicals (LH and LL). These results indicate that in the early stage of phonogram recognition, the neighborhood effect of phonetic radicals is regulated by the neighborhood size of semantic radicals. In the late stage of phonogram recognition, the higher the frequency of phonetic radicals, the stronger the semantic activation degree of the character. In general, the neighborhood size of phonetic radicals was found to affect vocabulary accessibility. However, the effect of the neighborhood size of phonetic radicals is regulated by the neighborhood size of semantic radicals.

Most Chinese characters are composed of a semantic radical on the left and a phonetic radical on the right. The semantic radical provides the semantic information; the phonetic radical provides information concerning the pronunciation of the whole character. The pseudo‐characters in the study consisted of different sub‐lexical parts of real Chinese characters and consequently they also had the semantic radical and the phonetic radical. But they were not readable and had no actual meaning. In order to investigate the spatiotemporal cortical activation patterns underlying the orthographic, phonological and semantic processing of Chinese characters, we used event‐related brain potentials (ERPs) to explore the processing of Chinese characters and pseudo‐characters when 14 healthy Chinese college students viewed the characters passively. Results showed that both Chinese characters and pseudo‐characters elicited an evident negative potential peaking around 120 ms (N120), which appeared to reflect initial orthographic distinction and evaluation. Then, Chinese pseudo‐characters elicited a more positive ERP deflection (P220) than did Chinese characters 200–250 ms after onset of the stimuli. It was similar to the recognition potential (RP) and might reflect the integration processes of phonological and semantic processing on the basis of early orthographic information. Dipole source analysis of the difference wave (pseudo‐characters minus characters) indicated that a generator localized in the left temporal‐occipital junction contributed to this effect, which was possibly related to phonological and perceptual–semantic information integration. Between 350–450 ms, a greater negativity (N360) in pseudo‐characters as compared to characters was found over midline fronto‐central scalp regions. Dipole analysis localized the generator of N360 in the right parahippocampal cortex. Therefore, the N360 might be an N400 component and reflect the higher‐level semantic activation on the basis of orthographic, phonological and perceptual–semantic processing.

In Chinese phonogram processing studies, it is not strange that phonetic radicals contribute phonologically to phonograms' phonological recognition. The present study, however, based on previous findings of phonetic radicals' proneness to semantic activation, as well as free-standing phonetic radicals' possession of triadic interconnections of orthography, phonology, and semantics at the lexical level, proposed that phonetic radicals may contribute semantically to the host phonograms' phonological recognition. We label this speculation as the "Dogs' Catching Mice" Conjecture. To examine this conjecture, three experiments were conducted. Experiment 1 was designed to confirm whether phonetic radicals, when embedded in phonograms, can contribute semantically to their host phonograms' phonological recognition. Experiment 2 was intended to show that the embedded phonetic radicals employed in Experiment 1 were truly semantically activated. Experiment 3, on top of the first two experiments, was devoted to demonstrating that the semantically activated phonetic radicals, when used as independent characters, can truly contribute semantically to their phonological recognition. Results from the three experiments combine to confirm the conjecture. The implication drawn is that phonetic radicals may have forged two paths in contributing to the host phonograms' phonological recognition: one is the regular "Cats' Catching Mice" Path, the other is the novel "Dogs' Catching Mice" Path.

通过眼动技术观察汉语阅读者在读音判断任务中对形声字声符和义符的注意规律，旨在探讨声符注意优势是否会受声符位置和声旁一致性高低的影响。结果发现：1) 一致性和结构的交互作用会导致声符注意优势的差异，在左形右声结构中，高一致字和低一致字的识别模式基本相同，声符注意优势明显；2) 在上形下声结构中，高一致字的声符注意优势会比低一致字更强；在左声右形结构和上声下形结构中，低一致字的声符注意优势会比高一致字更强。3) 推测大家族的抑制作用、义符携音性、汉字结构熟悉度、读音判断任务等可能成为声符注意优势产生差异的原因。 Aiming to find the phonetic consistency’s influence on different structures of phonogram characters in normal reading conditions, an Eyelink-1000 eye tracker was used to explore the role of phonetic radicals and semantic radicals in Chinese characters. The results showed that: 1) Phonetic radicals were given more attention than semantic radicals in all structures. Especially, when phonetic radicals were in the right or bottom of the characters, this advantage will be obvious. 2) Phonetic consistency plays a part in different structures of phonogram characters: Under the phonetic radical in right side structure, the consistency doesn’t make a difference in its recognition mode; Under the phonetic radical in left side and top side structures, semantic radical of high consistent word gain more attention; Under the phonetic radical in bottom side structure, phonetic radical of high consistent word gains more attention. 3) The differences of the advantage in phonetic radicals result from inhibitive effect of big size family, phonetic messages of semantic radicals, familiarity of Chinese characters’ structures and sound judgment task.

摘要:

The temporal signatures of semantic and phonological activations for Chinese sublexical processing: An event-related potential study

Foveal splitting causes differential processing of Chinese orthography in the male and female brain

Most sinograms (i.e., Chinese characters) are phonograms (phonetic compounds). A phonogram is composed of a semantic radical and a phonetic radical, with the former usually implying the meaning of the phonogram, and the latter providing cues to its pronunciation. This study focused on the sub-lexical processing of semantic radicals which are themselves free standing sinograms. Two primed naming experiments were carried out to examine whether the meanings and pronunciations of the semantic radicals embedded in phonograms were activated or not during sinogram recognition. In Experiment 1, semantically opaque phonograms were used as primes. We observed facilitatory priming effects for targets which were semantically related to the semantic radicals embedded in primes, but not to the primes themselves. These effects were present for low-frequency primes, but not for high-frequency primes. Experiment 2 used only low-frequency phonograms as primes. We observed facilitatory priming effects for targets which were homophones of the semantic radicals embedded in primes, but not of the primes themselves. These results suggest that sub-lexical semantic and phonological information of semantic radicals are activated, and that the activation processes are modulated by the lexical frequency of the host phonograms. Our study shows that sub-lexical processing of semantic radicals is similar to that of phonetic radicals, indicating no fundamental difference between sub-lexical processing of semantic and phonetic radicals, supporting the view that a radical has a unique representation irrespective of its function in the orthographic system of Taft’s model.

ABSTRACTThe phonetic radical of a Chinese character is typically considered as a sublexical unit providing clues to pronunciation. This tradition was challenged by a previous study showing that the meanings of phonetic radicals affected character naming speed. Three experiments were conducted to further investigate this issue. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that the meanings of phonetic radicals could be activated in the primed character decision and semantic categorisation tasks, indicating that the semantic activation of phonetic radicals is robust in different tasks. Moreover, Experiment 1 also showed that the meanings of phonetic radicals could be as strongly activated as whole characters. Experiment 3 adopted a multi-prime procedure and showed that the semantic activation of phonetic radicals could be eliminated when a prior context was supportive to whole-character meanings. These results are discussed with reference to the nature of sublexical processing in Chinese and how context influences character recognition.

Tracking the temporal dynamics of the processing of phonetic and semantic radicals in Chinese character recognition by MEG

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and PET technology, in bilingual experiments, we obtained the information of brain activation, and obtained some specific brain regions of bilingual activation. In this study, we used fMRI and behavioral experiments to investigate the difference in bilingual by Chinese-Japanese bilingual and Japanese subject in semantic and phonological processing of brain activity. Study on the use of Japanese subjects and Chinese-Japanese bilingual subjects, using Chinese or Japanese semantic or phonological judgment task, through the two groups of subjects their judgment task, discussion of bilingual Chinese and Japanese subjects differences between brain activity in semantic and phonological processing. Results show that no significant different brain area between Chinese semantic judgment task and Chinese phonological judgment task with Chinese-Japanese bilingual subjects, and Japanese semantic judgment task and Japanese phonological judgment task by subtracting the differences between the brain regions: the right frontal lobes (BA8/9), the left fusiform gyrus (BA37), the right temporal lobe (BA22/38); For the Japanese subjects, Japanese semantic judgment task and Japanese phonological judgment task is presupposed differences between the two brain regions include: the left superior temporal gyrus (BA40) and the left temporal lobe (BA22).

Holistic versus analytic processing: Evidence for a different approach to processing of Chinese at the word and character levels in Chinese children

Controversies have always existed in research related to reading abilities; on whether printed words are perceived in a feedforward manner based on orthographic information after which, other representations, such as phonology and semantics are activated, or whether these are fully interactive and high-level semantic information affects early processing. An interference paradigm was implemented in the presented protocol of phonological and semantic judgment tasks that utilized the same precede-target pairs to explore the relative order of phonological and semantic activation. The high- and low-frequency target words were preceded with three conditions: semantically related, phonological-related (homophones), or unrelated. The results showed that the induced P200 component of low-frequency word pairs was significantly greater than high-frequency words in both the semantic and phonological tasks. In addition, both the homophones in the semantic task and the semantically related pairs in the phonological task caused reduction in N400 when compared to the the control condition, word frequency-independently. It is worth noting that for the low-frequency pairs in the phonological judgment task, the P200 released by the semantically related word pairs was significantly larger than that in the control condition. Overall, semantic processing in phonological tasks and phonological processing in semantic tasks were found in both high- and low-frequency words, suggesting that the interaction between semantics and phonology may operate in a task-independent manner. However, the specific time this interaction occurred may have been affected by the task and frequency.