Complex Chinese Characters Research Articles

Eliminating sticking effects among fine strokes in micropatterning complex Chinese characters

In this work, complex Chinese micropatterns are experimentally inscribed in AgInSbTe thin films through laser writing technique. The overlapping inscription strategy is introduced to reduce the size of complex Chinese micropatterns, and the erosion algorithm is used to eliminate sticking effects among fine strokes in complex Chinese micropatterns. The results show that the size of complex Chinese micropatterns can be reduced to around 15.41µm×15.41µm. The width of the finest stroke is only 0.45 µm. This method can achieve a fidelity of 95%. This work helps with the long-term preservation of massive Chinese character archives.

The Influence of Input Method and Chinese Character Complexity on the Elderly Using Smartphones to Input Information – A Study from China

The usage of smartphones holds paramount importance in enhancing the ability of elderly people to live independently. This research aims to explore the various scenarios in which Chinese elderly people employ smartphones for information input, and how input method and Chinese character complexity affect their information input process. To achieve this, we conducted semi-structured interviews to investigate typical situations where Chinese elderly individuals use smartphones to input information. Based on the survey results, we devised an experiment to assess the impact of the input method and Chinese character complexity on the elderly’s objective physical load, mental load, input performance, and subjective experience during the inputting process. The findings revealed that the choice of input method significantly affects the objective physical load. Distinct input method engaged different major muscle groups during the process. As the Chinese character complexity increased, the elderly’s input performance declined, with handwriting input being particularly affected. Thus, we proposed enhancing the current handwriting interface by allowing users to input complex Chinese characters through handwritten pinyin, and simplify the start steps of the handwriting function based on the pinyin input interface. This study contributes to the development of evidence-based guidelines for the aging design of smart mobile devices, thus enhancing the elderly’s overall experience in using such technology.

Digital Mechanical Metasurfaces for Reprogrammable Structural Display.

Stimuli-responsive surfaces with reversible surface topography and controllable physical and mechanical properties are highly desirable for various engineering applications: e.g., information encoding, anticounterfeiting, micromanipulations, displays, etc. Here we present a digital type of stimuli-responsive surface composed of discrete silicon scales supported on individual core-shell magnetic micropillars (MMP) and realize precise control over the local topography of the surfaces. The individual MMP can be reversibly modulated between two contrasting bending states (state 0, hard to bend; state 1, easy to bend) by controlling the spatial distribution of the magnetic nanoparticles inside the pillar shells. These two different states of the micropillars induce a completely different topography of the supporting scales that can be utilized as mechanical pixels upon applying actuation magnetic fields. We further build a three-dimensional (3D) microcontrolling platform for digital modulation of the micropillar states. With this platform, a large array of 50 × 50 MMP surfaces can be programmed and reprogrammed into any combination of the local states by simply reading a matrix of binary digits. Such a digital modulation process facilitates the practical application of the MMP surfaces for fast and reprogrammable display of various structural patterns, as demonstrated for microscale letters, millimeter-scale QR code, and complex Chinese characters. The digital modulation and on-demand reprogrammability of the MMP surfaces reported here are expected to advance the development of various other forms of digital mechanical metasurfaces that can easily transform digital information into encoded mechanical responses.

Teaching Chinese characters to non-native speakers: A scoping review

The complexity of Chinese characters and the differences in learners’ cultural backgrounds make the process of teaching Chinese characters to non-native speakers of Chinese challenging. This review provides a comprehensive examination of five key strategies used in this instructional context: individualized instruction, contextualized instruction, technology-assisted instruction, innovative materials and resource development, and interdisciplinary integration. The ultimate approach to teaching non-native speakers of Chinese may come from the effective integration of these five strategies, so future research should focus on developing integrated instructional models that effectively combine these strategies. Further empirical research is also needed to verify the effectiveness of these strategies and to refine their implementation in different educational contexts.

CCFont: Component-Based Chinese Font Generation Model Using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs)

Font generation using deep learning has made considerable progress using image style transfer, but the automatic conversion/generation of Chinese characters still remains a difficult task owing to the complex character shape and large number of Chinese characters. Most known Chinese character generation models use the image conversion method of the Chinese character shape itself; however, it is difficult to reproduce complex Chinese characters. Recent methods have utilized character compositionality by separating up to three or four components to improve the quality of generated characters, but it is still difficult to generate high-quality results for complex Chinese characters with many components. In this study, we proposed the CCFont model (component-based Chinese font generation model using generative adversarial networks (GANs)) that automatically generates all Chinese characters using Chinese character components (up to 17 components). The CCFont model generates all Chinese characters in various styles using the components of Chinese characters based on conditional GAN. By acquiring local style information from the components, the information is more accurate and there is less information loss than when global information is obtained from the image of the entire character, reducing the failure of style conversion and improving quality to produce high-quality results. Additionally, the CCFont model generates high-quality results without any additional training (zero-shot font generation without any additional training) for the first-seen characters and styles. For example, the CCFont model, which was trained with only traditional Chinese (TC) characters, generates high-quality results for languages that can be divided into components, such as Korean and Thai, as well as simplified Chinese (SC) characters that are only seen during inference. CCFont can be adopted as a multi-lingual font-generation model that can be applied to all languages, which can be divided into components. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed method is the first to generate a zero-shot multilingual generation model using components. Qualitative and quantitative experiments were conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Staying afloat

Abstract This qualitative study gives an emic account of the experiences of adult L2 learners studying Chinese characters. Using semi-structured interviews and written journals of Americans who have spent time in China, the study uncovers core experiences and common patterns, giving voice to the holistic experience of learners, including affective aspects. The results of the study show that the very complexity of Chinese characters simultaneously attracts and deters learners. Learners experience an ever-growing realization of deeper complexity and greater volume. The struggling that ensues compels learners to actively find strategies to enable them to remain afloat in the learning process: (1) breaking down the complexity, (2) managing the incoming volume, (3) finding satisfaction in using the learning, (4) leading their own learning, (5) making use of resources, and (6) maintaining their learning. Findings from this study suggest practical applications for both L2 learners and teachers of Chinese characters.

Age differences in item selection behaviors and subsequent memory for new foreign language vocabulary: Evidence for a region of proximal learning heuristic.

We examined younger and older adults' item selection behaviors to assess heuristics for self-regulating learning of English meanings of Chinese characters varying widely in figural complexity. Two study-test trials were used to assess whether (a) item selection behaviors on the first study opportunity would show evidence for a difficulty-based heuristic as posited by Metcalfe's (2002) region of proximal learning (RPL) theory, or alternatively, influences of habitual English-language reading order (i.e. left-to-right, top-to-bottom); (b) whether second-trial selection behaviors were better predicted by RPL or by the discrepancy reduction model (DRM; Dunlosky & Hertzog, 1998); and (c) whether Trial 1 test performance would alter Trial 2 study in a manner predicted by RPL. DRM stipulates people select any item for study at Trial 2 that was not previously recalled. RPL states that people study only items they believe they can learn, avoiding complex items above their subjective RPL. Stimuli were 36 Chinese-English vocabulary pairs randomly presented in six 2 × 3-element grids. Both habitual reading order and stimulus complexity at Trial 1 affected order of study, with participants of both age groups manifesting a preference to study less complex characters. However, older adults showed larger effects of stimulus complexity whereas younger adults had larger effects of habitual reading order. At Trial 2, older adults showed a greater tendency to avoid studying the most complex Chinese characters, consistent with RPL, which contributed to their lower rates of vocabulary acquisition. Older adults' more conservative RPLs appeared to constrain their degree of self-regulated learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

｢閱讀促進學習｣教學法在中文第二語言課堂的漢字 教學之應用及成效

Due to the variety and complexity of Chinese characters in terms of form, pronunciation and meaning, many non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students failed to master the formation of characters and sentences. It might be worth mentioning that English language and some NCS students’ first languages such as Pilipino, Urdu and Nepali, are all based on alphabetic writing system. A lack of understandings of font and word meaning makes NCS students feel particularly difficult when writing Chinese characters. In view of the difficulties of NCS students in writing Chinese characters and the achievements of predecessors in applying Reading to Learn (R2L) pedagogy, this paper attempts to explore the application and effectiveness of R2L pedagogy in teaching Chinese characters to NCS students during Chinese classes. The participants were a group of 15 secondary one students who are learning Chinese as a second language, and their Chinese teacher. Using a qualitative research approach, interviews, lesson study and text analysis were conducted to explore whether R2L was considered and in fact effective for the students to acquire Chinese characters. The results of the study showed that the students with different Chinese levels significantly improved their writing after they received R2L pedagogy teaching. Based on the results, the researchers put forward relevant suggestions on the R2L teaching strategies that Chinese teachers might apply when teaching NCS students. Keywords : “Reading to Learn” pedagogy, Han characters, Teaching Chinese as a second language, NCS students 中文字詞在形, 音, 義上的繁多和複雜, 導致許多非華語學生無法很好地辨認不同字, 詞, 句組合的特徵, 而非華語學生所掌握的英語或其本身母語例如菲律賓語, 巴基斯坦語, 尼泊爾語等都是以拼音文字系統為主, 缺乏字型, 字義的概念, 故他們在書寫漢字時感到特別困難｡ 鑒於非華語學生在漢字書寫上的困難, 以及前賢學者在應用｢閱讀促進學習｣(Reading to Learn, 簡稱R2L)教學法取得的成果, 本文嘗試探究這種教學法在非華語學生中文課堂的漢字教學之應用, 觀察並分析中文老師運用R2L教學法進行漢字教學的課堂設計和教學步驟, 以評估這種教學法對提高學生寫作描寫文字詞的成效｡ 本文以個案研究的方式探討R2L教學法如何應用在香港非華語學生中文漢字的寫作教學上, 透過分析一位中文老師運用R2L教學法給十五位中一級非華語學生講解描寫文的篇章和字詞寫作的課堂教學情況, 利用師生訪談, 課堂研習和文本分析等研究工具, 總結R2L教學法在中文第二語言課堂的漢字教學的應用情況及評估其成效｡ 研究結果顯示中文老師運用R2L教學法施教後, 可有效提高不同程度學生寫作描寫文字詞和篇章的能力｡ 研究者根據本文的研究結果, 對於R2L教學法應用在非華語學生中文課堂的漢字教學策略提出相關建議｡ 關鍵字 : ｢閱讀促進學習｣教學法, 中文第二語言, 漢字教學, 非華語學生

SSNet: Structure-Semantic Net for Chinese typography generation based on image translation

The abundant complex Chinese characters often lead to the high cost of time and labor in its typography production, which cannot meet various demands of typohraphies in daily life. Image translation methods are becoming the mainstream of typography generation to facilitate typography production. Nevertheless, current translation methods do not take the Chinese semantics and structure into account. In this paper, we propose a method called Structure-Semantic Net (SSNet) for Chinese typography generation, which utilizes disentangled stroke features from the structure module, pre-trained semantic features from the semantic module to generate target typographies. Furthermore, a novel loss called dual-masked Hausdorff distance is proposed to punish the incorrectly generated pixels to regularize the character contours, stabilizing the training process. Qualitative and quantitative results show that the proposed SSNet surpasses existing image translation methods in image quality, and the ablation study of SSNet verifies the effectiveness of each module and loss function.

Which form of Chinese Characters is More Beneficial to Education: Research of the Influencing Factors Based on Aliquot Linear Regression

There are two forms of Chinese characters, the simplified and the complex form. The simplified Chinese characters are widely used in most parts of China, while the complex form are still used in several parts of China, namely Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Some studies proposed that the complex Chinese characters are conducive to improving the learning effects, but some scholars hold opposite views. In order to further explore the role of different forms of Chinese characters in field of education, this paper studied the factors affecting the learning effects and willingness of students who use simplified Chinese characters for a long time. With the questionnaire experiment and the aliquot linear regression method, data were collected, processed and analyzed. This analysis shows the complex Chinese characters have an impact on certain students' learning effects and willingness, while some will learn better using simplified characters. These differences vary from person to person due to individual’s specific situation, which provides some suggestions to education practice.

Decoding visually complex Chinese Characters during short-term memory from language related regions

Decoding visually complex Chinese Characters during short-term memory from language related regions

A robot calligraphy system: From simple to complex writing by human gestures

Robotic writing is a very challenging task and involves complicated kinematic control algorithms and image processing work. This paper, alternatively, proposes a robot calligraphy system that firstly applies human arm gestures to establish a font database of Chinese character elementary strokes and English letters, then uses the created database and human gestures to write Chinese characters and English words. A three-dimensional motion sensing input device is deployed to capture the human arm trajectories, which are used to build the font database and to train a classifier ensemble. 26 types of human gesture are used for writing English letters, and 5 types of gesture are used to generate 5 elementary strokes for writing Chinese characters. By using the font database, the robot calligraphy system acquires a basic writing ability to write simple strokes and letters. Then, the robot can develop to write complex Chinese characters and English words by following human body movements. The classifier ensemble, which is used to identify each gesture, is implemented through using feature selection techniques and the harmony search algorithm, thereby achieving better classification performance. The experimental evaluations are carried out to demonstrate the feasibility and performance of the proposed method. By following the motion trajectories of the human right arm, the end-effector of the robot can successfully write the English words or Chinese characters that correspond to the arm trajectories.

Effect of pattern complexity on the visual span for Chinese and alphabet characters.

The visual span for reading is the number of letters that can be recognized without moving the eyes and is hypothesized to impose a sensory limitation on reading speed. Factors affecting the size of the visual span have been studied using alphabet letters. There may be common constraints applying to recognition of other scripts. The aim of this study was to extend the concept of the visual span to Chinese characters and to examine the effect of the greater complexity of these characters. We measured visual spans for Chinese characters and alphabet letters in the central vision of bilingual subjects. Perimetric complexity was used as a metric to quantify the pattern complexity of binary character images. The visual span tests were conducted with four sets of stimuli differing in complexity--lowercase alphabet letters and three groups of Chinese characters. We found that the size of visual spans decreased with increasing complexity, ranging from 10.5 characters for alphabet letters to 4.5 characters for the most complex Chinese characters studied. A decomposition analysis revealed that crowding was the dominant factor limiting the size of the visual span, and the amount of crowding increased with complexity. Errors in the spatial arrangement of characters (mislocations) had a secondary effect. We conclude that pattern complexity has a major effect on the size of the visual span, mediated in large part by crowding. Measuring the visual span for Chinese characters is likely to have high relevance to understanding visual constraints on Chinese reading performance.

A Stroop effect emerges in the processing of complex Chinese characters that contain a color-related radical

Three experiments examined whether a Stroop effect emerges in the processing of complex Chinese characters that contain a color-related radical. In Experiment 1, a Stroop effect occurred when participants responded to the black or white color of the simple characters [Chinese character: see text] (black) and [Chinese character: see text] (white) by making a left or right keypress. For Experiment 2, in which the stimuli were complex characters whose meanings were unrelated to color but that contained [Chinese character: see text] or [Chinese character: see text] as a radical, a Stroop effect also occurred, although it was smaller than in Experiment 1. Furthermore, this Stroop effect as a function of radical meaning was shown again in Experiment 3 for low-frequency complex characters but not high-frequency ones. These results suggest that the semantic representations of the complex characters’ color-related radicals are accessed in the context of a Stroop color word task, especially for low-frequency characters. Reduction of the Stroop effect in complex characters composed of one radical with color meaning and one without is similar to dilution of the Stroop effect that occurs when a color word is accompanied by a neutral word. Possible implications of the results for accounts of Stroop dilution are discussed.

Radical-stroke-based Chinese input method using dynamic radical keypad on touchscreen smartphones

This paper presents a new Chinese input method that utilises finger gestures for improving stroke-based input method on touchscreen devices. It is a radical-stroke (RS) based method with a dynamic radical keypad (DRK), in which single radical multiple strokes coding is used. It speeds up the input of complex Chinese characters by simply sliding a finger. Experimental results show that the proposed RS–DRK outperforms the conventional Chinese input methods on an Android platform.

The N2- and N400-like effects of radicals on complex Chinese characters

Participants were asked to complete a delayed character-matching task, while their event-related brain potentials (ERPs) elicited by Chinese character fragments were recorded. This task required participants to match probe characters with their preceding fragments, which were randomly assigned to be either radical or stroke-deleted. However, the same number of strokes was retained in either case. The stroke-deleted fragments, which contained fewer intact radicals, elicited larger N2- and N400-like components compared with the radical-deleted fragments. Stroke-deleted fragments displayed lower response accuracy than the radical-deleted fragments. These results indicate that simple radicals have an intermediate or sub-character function in Chinese character recognition. The processing of characters with more destroyed radicals is impeded within a multilayer interactive-activation model.

Project P.A.T.H.S. in Hong Kong: New Curriculum in Response to Adolescent Developmental Issues

Project P.A.T.H.S. in Hong Kong: New Curriculum in Response to Adolescent Developmental Issues

An Ethical Underworld? Legendary con Artists in Arabic Vernacular Fiction

The commercial and critical success of Ang Lee's martial arts film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000),1 is an important landmark not only in the history of Chinese Cinema but also in the history of Hollywood. It departs from earlier Hollywood films about the East, such as the Fu Manchu series, and strikes out on its own in its quest for a place in the Hollywood pantheon. Its difference from the Arabian Nights films made in Hollywood cannot be more conspicuous. This difference is significant, especially in view of the one and same origin of Hollywood films based on 'Eastern' material and on the 'East', traceable to the silent The Thief of Bagdad (1924), the unrepeatable precursor of all cinematic adaptations of The 1001 Nights, and equally the progenitor of cul tural stereotypes, of both the Middle Easterner and the Far Easterner. The 'Mongol Prince from eastern Asia', the arch-villain of The Thief of Bagdad, had for decades provided the blueprint of Hollywood portrayal of an 'opium smok ing, treacherous, lecherous and despotic' mandarin from the far 'Orient'. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, preceded by three decades of kung fu films made globally familiar and popular by Bruce Lee and his generation of movie stars from Hong Kong and Taiwan, has neutralized this Hollywood 'Oriental' despot and opened up the global cinematic landscape for a more diverse Chinese world inhabited by complex Chinese characters. These Chinese kungfu films, just like The Thief of Bagdad, are based in in digenous vernacular fiction. While the genre of films constituting The Thief of Bagdad and its 'sequels' may all be attributed to transmutations of The 1001

Legibility of Chinese characters in peripheral vision and the top-down influences on crowding

Written Chinese is distinct from alphabetic languages because of its enormous number of characters with a great range of spatial complexities (stroke numbers). In this study we investigated the impact of spatial complexity on legibility of Chinese characters as well as associated crowding in peripheral vision. Our results showed that for isolated characters, threshold sizes of complex characters increased faster with retinal eccentricity than did those of simple characters, suggesting possible “within-character” crowding among parts of complex Chinese characters. However, such “within-character” crowding was rendered negligible by strong “between-character” crowding introduced by flankers. When the target and flankers belonged to different complexity groups, the intensity and extent of crowding were greatly reduced, which could be explained by top-down influences as well as lower-level mechanisms. We suggest that crowding can be attributed to multiple mechanisms at different levels of visual processing.

Video-based handwritten Chinese character recognition

In this work, we propose a video-based handwritten Chinese character recognition system. By using several error correction techniques, the algorithm works effectively against various shadow and noise problems for video-based stroke-tracing of complex Chinese characters. The stroke temporal information similar to an online OCR system is accurately extracted. Recognition experiments on a large set of handwritten Chinese characters clearly demonstrates the efficacy of the system.