Chinese Character Reading Research Articles

Faces, English words and Chinese characters: a study of dual-task interference in mono-and bilingual speakers.

The many-to-many hypothesis suggests that face and visual-word processing tasks share neural resources in the brain, even though they show opposing hemispheric asymmetries in neuroimaging and neuropsychologic studies. Recently it has been suggested that both stimulus and task effects need to be incorporated into the hypothesis. A recent study found dual-task interference between face and text functions that lateralized to the same hemisphere, but not when they lateralized to different hemispheres. However, it is not clear whether a lack of interference between word and face recognition would occur for other languages, particularly those with a morpho-syllabic script, like Chinese, for which there is some evidence of greater right hemispheric involvement. Here, we used the same technique to probe for dual-task interference between English text, Chinese characters and face recognition. We tested 20 subjects monolingual for English and 20 subjects bilingual for Chinese and English. We replicated the prior result for English text and showed similar results for Chinese text with no evidence of interference with faces. We also did not find interference between Chinese and English text. The results support a view in which reading English words, reading Chinese characters and face identification have minimal sharing of neural resources.

元和本和名抄 地名의 付訓表記에 있어서 字訓의 通用에 대하여

This article surveyed different of Chinese character reading in place names of Wamyosyo, which differ from those in Manyosyu and so on. I examined examples of common uses of Chinese character reading among them. There were many accompanying examples about ｢シ(si)→ス(su)｣ ｢ヌ(nu)→ノ(no)｣ ｢ミ(mi)→ム(mu)｣ ｢モ(mo)→ム(mu)｣. In case of ｢ヌ (nu)→ノ(no)｣, the letter ｢ヌ(nu)｣ in Manyo was recorded as ｢乃(ノ乙 sort)｣ in Chinese character readings of Wamyosyo without exception. It is thought that the letter ｢ヌ(nu)｣ in Manyo was recorded as ｢乃｣ without distinction between 甲 sort and ノ乙 sort, since Wamyosyo was created, in the middle age of Heian. There were numerous accompanying examples of マ line, ｢ミ→ム(上·神·忌)｣, and ｢モ→ム(下·諸·桃)｣. There was no regularity in the common use of ミ甲·乙 sort and ム in Wamyosyo. Moreover, イ-Euphonic changes and Kana Ligatures are other examples of common uses in place names’ reading in Wamyosyo.

Associations between sleep, reading, and mathematics in Taiwanese children.

Some research shows a link between sleep behaviours and school achievement in English-speaking children and adolescents. The current study aimed to examine the relationship between children's sleep behaviours and aspects of their school achievement in Mandarin-speaking children who are living in Taiwan. The present study reports on 69 second-grade children (age range=6.84-8.4 years) recruited in Taipei City, Taiwan. Children's sleep behaviours were assessed through two standardized parent self-report questionnaires: the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) and the Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children (SDSC). Children undertook three standardized tests of word reading, reading comprehension and math. Key findings include: (i) sleep disturbances are more prevalent when using the CSHQ scale than the SDSC scale, (ii) around half of second graders struggle with general sleep disturbances as observed by the CSHQ scale, (iii) children who go to bed before 22:00 and have at least 9-h sleep tend to exhibit fewer sleep disturbances, (iv) parasomnias as measured by the CSHQ are negatively correlated with reading comprehension after controlling age and nonverbal IQ, and (v) the amount of sleep (naps) during daytime is negatively correlated with Chinese character recognition, reading comprehension and math after controlling age and nonverbal IQ. There is growing awareness of the value of research that spans culturally and linguistically diverse populations. Our study contributes to ongoing discussions about the relationship between sleep, and skills in reading and math in school-aged children in Taiwan.

Using Dynamic Assessment to Measure Morpheme Identification and Predict Character Reading Among Chinese Children

AbstractIn the present study, we designed a dynamic measure to assess emerging morphological awareness in Chinese children and examined its concurrent and longitudinal relations with character recognition. The initial question of the dynamic assessment of morphological awareness (DAMA) task asked children to judge whether the first morphemes in a pair of words shared the same meaning. Subsequently, up to four prompts were provided for each word in the word pair to draw children's attention to the meaning of the target morpheme as well as the morphological structure of the word. The participants included 154 first‐grade Chinese children. In addition to the DAMA task, they received a battery of measures including nonverbal intelligence, rapid automatized naming, phonological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and Chinese character reading. While all measures were administered at the beginning of grade 1, the character reading measure was administered again at the end of grade 1, and at the beginning and end of grade 2. The results showed that the prompts provided in the DAMA task increased children's ability to identify morpheme meanings in compound words by helping them separate morpheme meanings from word meanings. Furthermore, the DAMA task accounted for significant unique variance in character recognition concurrently at the beginning of grade 1 and longitudinally at all three other time points after controlling for static morphological awareness and other reading related variables. Our study suggests that dynamic assessment can be used to effectively assess morphological awareness and predict character reading abilities in young Chinese children.

Developmental changes in the contributions of phonological processing skills to Chinese character reading and arithmetic

This study examined the associations of phonological processing skills with reading and arithmetic ability in Chinese kindergartners (Mage = 5.56 years), third graders (Mage = 9.72 years), and fifth graders (Mage = 11.75 years) (N = 413) of Han descent. The results showed that phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming (RAN) showed stronger relations than phonological memory with reading and arithmetic across grades. Furthermore, the associations of phonological awareness and RAN with reading were much stronger in kindergartners than in primary school children, whereas their relationships with arithmetic remained stable across grades. Among phonological skills, phonological awareness has a unique influence on arithmetic that is independent of Chinese character reading in third-graders and kindergartners. In contrast, RAN uniquely explained the variation in arithmetic skills in fifth graders when reading was statistically controlled for. These findings have important implications for understanding the co-development of reading and arithmetic across grades and raise the possibility of training in phonological awareness and/or RAN to help children at risk for learning disabilities.

The effects of stimulus‐driven and goal‐directed attentional control on word reading skills among first‐grade Chinese children

BackgroundVisual–spatial attention is associated with reading development, but we do not know whether this is primarily driven by the deployment of goal‐directed or stimulus‐driven attention.MethodOne hundred ninety‐four Chinese‐speaking first graders completed two visual search tasks, in which they searched for a target among a number of distractor items. In the feature search task, the orientation of the target was different from that of the distractors (i.e., a horizontal line amid vertical lines), whereas in the conjunction search, the target was defined by a combination of orientation and colour (i.e., a red horizontal line among red vertical lines and green horizontal lines). They then completed two reading tasks in addition to morphological awareness, rapid naming, vocabulary, nonverbal intelligence, and verbal working memory tasks.ResultsAccuracy in the conjunction, but not feature, search was positively correlated with Chinese character recognition and reading fluency. Moreover, conjunction search accuracy explained unique variance in character recognition accuracy after controlling for morphological awareness, rapid naming, and vocabulary, as well as age, nonverbal intelligence, and verbal working memory. Additionally, children with good reading skills tended to show smaller decreases in search accuracy with larger set sizes than those with poor reading skills.ConclusionsThe data suggest that reading is associated with goal‐directed but not stimulus‐driven visual–spatial attention. This non‐linguistic ability appears to contribute to reading beyond established reading‐related linguistic skills.

A genome-wide association study identifies a new variant associated with word reading fluency in Chinese children.

Reading disability exhibited defects in different cognitive domains, including word reading fluency, word reading accuracy, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming and morphological awareness. To identify the genetic basis of Chinese reading disability, we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of the cognitive traits related to Chinese reading disability in 2284unrelated Chinese children. Among the traits analyzed in the present GWAS, we detected one genome-wide significant association (p < 5 × 10-8 ) on word reading fluency for one SNP on 4p16.2, within EVC genes (rs6446395, p=7.33 × 10-10 ). Rs6446395 also showed significant association with Chinese character reading accuracy (p=2.95 × 10-4 ), phonological awareness (p=7.11 × 10-3 ) and rapid automatized naming (p=4.71 × 10-3 ), implying multiple effects of this variant. The eQTL data showed that rs6446395 affected EVC expression in the cerebellum. Gene-based analyses identified a gene (PRDM10) to be associated with word reading fluency at the genome-wide level. Our study discovered a new candidate susceptibility variant for reading ability and provided new insights into the genetics ofdevelopmental dyslexia in Chinese children.

Predictors of Early Mandarin Chinese Character Reading Development.

In the present study, we investigated the development of Chinese character reading and its predictors in 55 children from K3 (the last year of kindergarten) to G1 (first grade) in Mainland China. It was examined to what extent first graders' Mandarin Chinese character reading was related to their phonological awareness, Pinyin letter knowledge, and visual perception skills in kindergarten. The results showed that phonological awareness, Pinyin letter knowledge, and Chinese character reading improved from kindergarten to Grade 1, with Pinyin showing ceiling effects in Grade 1. Children's character reading in first grade was not predicted from phonological awareness in kindergarten. However, visual discrimination showed an indirect effect on Grade 1 character reading via its effect on kindergarten character reading. It can be concluded that both kindergarten visual discrimination and character reading ability facilitate first-grade reading ability for children in Mainland China.

The Unique Predictive Value of Dynamic Assessment of Character Decoding in Reading Development of Chinese Children from Grades 1 to 2

ABSTRACT Purpose This 2-year longitudinal study examined the unique prediction of a dynamic assessment (DA) of character decoding on Chinese early reading development, and further explored whether learning potential, as assessed by DA, predicts subsequent character reading development in a sample of 135 native Mandarin-speaking Chinese students from first grade to second grade. Method Latent Growth Modeling was carried out to examine the prediction of DA administered in grade 1 for the character reading growth in Chinese children from grade 1 to 2. Growth Mixture Modeling was used to identify latent-class groups with varying learning potential based on the trial-by-trial progresses on DA, and predicted the distal outcome, Chinese character reading. Results DA uniquely predicted the final level and growth rate of character reading for Chinese children from grade 1 to 2 after controlling for traditional static predictors. Additionally, three latent groups were identified to characterize different responsiveness to graduated prompts in the DA task; the three latent groups showed significant differences in character reading over time. Conclusion The findings underscore the importance of DA in predicting Chinese children’s early reading development and the classification validity of learning potential subgroups of DA in differentiating early character reading development in Chinese children.

Age differences in the relation between Chinese students’ prosodic sensitivity and reading comprehension: From nine to fifteen years

This study investigated the performance of prosodic sensitivity among Chinese students from nine to fifteen years as well as its contribution to reading comprehension. For this study, we recruited 181 Chinese children with typical development from 9 to 15 years in Taiwan. Fifty-five were 9–10 years, 53 were 11–12 years, and the other 62 were 13–15 years. They were tested for prosodic sensitivity, phonological processing, Chinese character reading, and reading comprehension. Our results indicated clear age differences in two prosodic sensitivities: – the youngest group performed significantly worse than the other two groups. Additionally, our results showed that prosodic sensitivity significantly contributed to reading comprehension for only the two older groups. Theoretically, our results shed light on the role of prosodic sensitivity, especially above the character level, in Chinese reading comprehension. Teachers and instructors should consider prosodic sensitivity when preparing interventions for reading comprehension.

Humor Comprehension of Chinese Adolescents with and without Dyslexia

ABSTRACT This study aims to bridge the research gap in the humour comprehension problems of individuals with dyslexia in Chinese culture. We conducted a nonexperimental study to examine the differences between Chinese adolescents with and without dyslexia in visual humour comprehension as well as the group differences in the correlation of visual humour comprehension with other abilities. In total, 48 Chinese adolescents (16 individuals with dyslexia and 32 individuals without dyslexia) were recruited in Hong Kong. They were all administered several tasks: tests of nonverbal IQ, Chinese character reading, visual-spatial attention, orthographic knowledge, and visual humour comprehension. Our results indicated that visual humour comprehension is correlated with other abilities. Additionally, the group with dyslexia performed significantly less accurately on most tasks except humour comprehension accuracy. However, only visual spatial attention, orthographic knowledge, and humour comprehension speed significantly predicted membership in the two groups. Finally, approximately half of the participants with dyslexia had significantly slower humour comprehension than those with typical development. Our findings shed light on problems with humour comprehension exhibited by Chinese individuals with dyslexia.

Effects of visual span on Chinese reading performance in normal peripheral vision

The current study examined the relationships among temporal processing speed, spatial visual span and Chinese character reading speed in normal central and peripheral vision. Maximum reading speed (MRS) and critical print size (CPS) of 26 native Chinese readers (13 young and 13 older adults) were determined at three visual field locations: central vision, 10° left and 10° below fixation using a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. Temporal processing speed was measured using trigrams of randomly selected Chinese characters presented at a range of exposure durations, while spatial visual span was measured using trigrams presented at different spatial positions. It was found that shorter temporal processing speed and larger spatial visual span were associated with faster MRS at the central and inferior visual field locations, but not at the left of fixation location. As expected, reading and visual span metrics were better in central vision compared to both peripheral locations. In addition, reading, temporal processing, and spatial visual span metrics were better in the young than older subjects (except for similar temporal processing speed at two peripheral locations). The results for central and inferior presentation locations support the hypothesis that temporal processing speed and spatial visual span were associated with Chinese character reading speed. Surprisingly, no correlation was observed for the 10° left of the fixation location, suggesting that the factors affecting reading speed might differ for inferior and lateral peripheral viewing locations.

The Role of Phonological Awareness, Pinyin Letter Knowledge, and Visual Perception Skills in Kindergarteners' Chinese Character Reading.

Word identification models assume that words are identified by at least two sources of information and analysis; one is phonological, and the other is visual. The present study investigated the influence of phonological awareness, Pinyin letter knowledge, and visual perception skills on Chinese character recognition after controlling for vocabulary, rapid naming, and verbal short-term memory in 80 Mandarin-speaking kindergarten children. Children were tested on phonological awareness (syllable awareness, onset-end rhyme awareness, and tone awareness), Pinyin letter naming, and visual perception (visual discrimination and visual-spatial relationships). The results showed that variance in Chinese character recognition could be explained by syllable awareness and tone awareness, but not by visual perception skills or Pinyin letter knowledge. Analyses further indicated that Pinyin letter knowledge moderated the relationship between tone awareness and Chinese character recognition. A focus on tone awareness and syllable awareness in the kindergarten may help Chinese children to accomplish the transition from phonological awareness to early literacy, while Pinyin letter knowledge can help children to make the connection between Chinese speech and writing.

Lower prosodic sensitivity in Chinese children with dyslexia and its impact on Chinese reading.

The current study aims to examine prosodic sensitivity in Chinese children with dyslexia and its relation to Chinese reading in children with and without dyslexia. A total of 172 Chinese children from third grade to sixth grade in Taiwanese primary schools were recruited. Thirty (14 male) children were identified as having dyslexia, and the remaining children (N= 142; 67 male) were typically developing children matched with those with dyslexia as carefully as possible with respect to school, grade, and gender. Our results indicated that group differences were found for all three types of prosodic sensitivity. Moderation analyses showed that group had no significant interaction with prosodic sensitivity in predicting Chinese reading, so the participants in the two groups were combined in the following analyses. The results of the stepwise regression analyses showed that only lexical tone awareness could significantly predict Chinese character reading after controlling for phonological awareness, while only intonation awareness could significantly predict reading comprehension after controlling for Chinese character reading. The results provide preliminary evidence on the issue of prosodic sensitivity in Chinese children with dyslexia and its role in Chinese reading, which might provide a novel approach to the teaching of Chinese languages.

The LightGBM-based classification algorithm for Chinese characters speech imagery BCI system.

Brain-computer interface (BCI) can obtain text information by decoding language induced electroencephalogram (EEG) signals, so as to restore communication ability for patients with language impairment. At present, the BCI system based on speech imagery of Chinese characters has the problem of low accuracy of features classification. In this paper, the light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM) is adopted to recognize Chinese characters and solve the above problems. Firstly, the Db4 wavelet basis function is selected to decompose the EEG signals in six-layer of full frequency band, and the correlation features of Chinese characters speech imagery with high time resolution and high frequency resolution are extracted. Secondly, the two core algorithms of LightGBM, gradient-based one-side sampling and exclusive feature bundling, are used to classify the extracted features. Finally, we verify that classification performance of LightGBM is more accurate and applicable than the traditional classifiers according to the statistical analysis methods. We evaluate the proposed method through contrast experiment. The experimental results show that the average classification accuracy of the subjects' silent reading of Chinese characters "(left)", "(one)" and simultaneous silent reading is improved by 5.24%, 4.90% and 12.44% respectively.

Training-Specific Changes in Regional Spontaneous Neural Activity Among Professional Chinese Chess Players.

BackgroundOur previous reports reflected some aspects of neuroplastic changes from long-term Chinese chess training but were mainly based on large-scale intrinsic connectivity. In contrast to functional connectivity among remote brain areas, synchronization of local intrinsic activity demonstrates functional connectivity among regional areas. Until now, local connectivity changes in professional Chinese chess players (PCCPs) have been reported only at specific hubs; whole-brain-based local connectivity and its relation to training profiles has not been revealed.ObjectivesTo investigate whole-brain local connectivity changes and their relation to training profiles in PCCPs.MethodsRegional homogeneity (ReHo) analysis of rs-fMRI data from 22 PCCPs versus 21 novices was performed to determine local connectivity changes and their relation to training profiles.ResultsCompared to novices, PCCPs showed increased regional spontaneous activity in the posterior lobe of the left cerebellum, the left temporal pole, the right amygdala, and the brainstem but decreased ReHo in the right precentral gyrus. From a whole-brain perspective, local activity in areas such as the posterior lobe of the right cerebellum and the caudate correlated with training profiles.ConclusionRegional homogeneity changes in PCCPs were consistent with the classical view of automaticity in motor control and learning. Related areas in the pattern indicated an enhanced capacity for emotion regulation, supporting cool and focused attention during gameplay. The possible participation of the basal ganglia-cerebellar-cerebral networks, as suggested by these correlation results, expands our present knowledge of the neural substrates of professional chess players. Meanwhile, ReHo change occurred in an area responsible for the pronunciation and reading of Chinese characters. Additionally, professional Chinese chess training was associated with change in a region that is affected by Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Reading Ability in Patients With Tuberous Sclerosis Complex: Results of Chinese Character Reading and Reading Comprehension Tests.

BackgroundMost tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) patients have neurological disorders and are at high risk of academic difficulties. Among academic skills, reading ability is the most important academic skill. The study applied the Chinese character fluency test to measure the word recognition and reading comprehension of TSC children to observe whether they have the characteristics of reading disability, as an indicator of the spectrum of reading ability in TSC patients.MethodsThe patients were assessed using the Chinese character fluency test and reading comprehension test to explore the differences in reading ability in terms of gender, age, epilepsy history, genotype, and intelligence level.ResultsOf the 27 patients, the assessment of reading accuracy showed statistical differences between intellectual level > 80, PR (p = 0.024), and pass numbers (p = 0.018). For the fluency assessment, there was a difference between different intellectual level (p = 0.050). In the reading comprehension test, there was differences for intellectual level in positivity (p = 0.07) and pass numbers (p = 0.06).ConclusionThe Chinese character fluency and reading comprehension test measure the word recognition and reading comprehension and the spectrum of reading ability in TSC patients. All individuals with TSC, especially those with below average of intellectual ability, should be considered for potential academic difficulties.

Neural representation of phonological information during Chinese character reading.

Previous studies have revealed that phonological processing of Chinese characters elicited activation in the left prefrontal cortex, bilateral parietal cortex, and occipitotemporal regions. However, it is controversial what role the left middle frontal gyrus plays in Chinese character reading, and whether the core regions (e.g., the left superior temporal gyrus and supramarginal gyrus) for phonological processing of alphabetic languages are also involved in Chinese character reading. To address these questions, the present study used both univariate and multivariate analysis (i.e., representational similarity analysis, RSA) to explore neural representations of phonological information during Chinese character reading. Participants were scanned while performing a reading aloud task. Univariate activation analysis revealed a widely distributed network for word reading, including the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, lateral temporal cortex, and occipitotemporal cortex. More importantly, RSA showed that the left prefrontal (i.e., the left middle frontal gyrus and left inferior frontal gyrus) and bilateral occipitotemporal areas (i.e., the left inferior and middle temporal gyrus and bilateral fusiform gyrus) represented phonological information of Chinese characters. These results confirmed the importance of the left middle frontal gyrus and regions in ventral pathway in representing phonological information of Chinese characters.

Lexical Orthographic Knowledge Mediates the Relationship Between Character Reading and Reading Comprehension Among Learners With Chinese as a Second Language.

Reading in Chinese is complex because readers should not only recognize characters by basic units (i.e., characters) but also integrate characters into words when reading text. While many efforts have been devoted to investigating the effect of sub-lexical orthographic knowledge in Chinese character reading, less is known about the role played by lexical orthographic knowledge at word level. A total of 424 secondary learners with Chinese as a second language (CSL) in Hong Kong were assessed with character reading, reading comprehension, and two lexical orthographic knowledge tasks: lexical orthographic choice (OKC) and lexical orthographic choice in context (OKCC). Path analysis results demonstrated that these lexical orthographic skills significantly mediated the effect of character reading on comprehension, in which OKCC was a more critical mediator as its mediating effect was bigger than that of OKC. Further analyses showed that these mediating effects were significant only among students with richer learning experience (i.e., learning Chinese for 4 years or above). Our results illustrate the possible trajectory of CSL learners’ literacy development from character reading to reading comprehension and provide pedagogical implications for teaching and learning.

Same or different: Chinese character reading and word reading of young readers with development

Same or different: Chinese character reading and word reading of young readers with development