Single Chinese Character Research Articles

Lateralization in the visual perception of Chinese characters and words

It has been reported that tachistoscopic perception of single Chinese characters is better with a left-visual-field (LVF) than with a right-visual-field (RVF) presentation and that of Chinese words consisting of characters is better with a RVF presentation (O. J. L. Tzeng, D. L. Hung, B. Cotton, & S.-Y. Wang 1979, Nature ( London), 382, 499–501). In this study, the nature of this character-word difference in lateralization was explored in a task in which stimuli were presented unilaterally to a visual field for recognition test. Four types of stimuli were used: Single character, single pseudo- or noncharacter, two-character word, and two-character pseudoword. Results show (a) no visual-field advantage for illegal characters and words, (b) a LVF-advantage effect for characters associated with a more prominent LVF than RVF character-superiority effect, (c) a RVF-advantage effect for words associated with a more prominent RVF than LVF word-superiority effect, and (d) these two visual-field effects for characters and words being not absolute, they occur only with a low rather than with a high recognition for their respective illegal counterparts. These results suggest that the character-word difference is due to a more efficient lexical interpretation of character stimuli in the right than in the left hemisphere and a more efficient lexical interpretation of word stimuli in the left than in the right hemisphere.

The lateralization of hemispheric function in the recognition of Chinese characters

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the lateralization of hemispheric functions. In experiment 1 single Chinese characters, English words and random dot forms were used as stimuli presented to the left or right visual field of adults. In experiment 2 adults and school children were asked to recognize single characters presented in one field and Arabic numerals in the opposite field. The results indicated that adults and children all showed left hemisphere superiority in the recognition of characters. Some possible causes were given to explain why Chinese characters, being an ideographic language, showed a similar superiority as phonetic languages.

'Hubba-Hubba': A Denial of Its Derivation from Chinese

M Y PRIMARY CONCERN in this article is to comment on a misapplied 'explanation' and, by doing so, to demonstrate that there is no connection whatever between hubba-hubba and the Chinese hao-pu-hao, or any other Chinese phrase. David W. Maurer inadvertently committed an error in his note of i947.1 The error is in his misapplication of an etymological explanation (that is, not a translation) of a single Chinese character or word. The misapplication occurred in the following: 'Dr. Paul Hao . . . contributes a charming literary translation of hao-pu-hao; he suggests is good under heaven when boy meets girl. '2 It is this misapplication that has been accepted as being correct and that has been repeated in other works. The error results from imputing a translation to a whole phrase when the 'explainer' had given an explanation of only the first character of the phrase. Generally speaking, a misapplied 'explanation' need have no particular significance when it appears in a tentatively advanced theory in which the theorist seems to be aware of its improbability and, apparently, does not expect it to be taken seriously. Often such an error can be readily recognized, and no comments are necessary to ensure that it be ignored. However, Maurer's misapplication has taken on an unwarranted importance in that it has been responsible for the acceptance of the 'explanation' of a character to be an authoritative and purportedly correct translation of a Chinese phrase. Perhaps the error was overlooked because of the charm and the appeal of its presentation. It has been cloaked with an aura of respectability, correctness, and acceptance by subsequent repetitions with the inference that the 'explanation' was indeed a 'translation,' viz.: