Research on Japanese reading has generally indicated that processing of the logographic script Kanji primarily involves whole-word lexical processing and follows a semantics-to-phonology route, while the two phonological scripts Hiragana and Katakana (collectively called Kana) are processed via a sub-lexical route, and more in a…

This lexical decision eye-tracking study investigated whether horizontal and vertical readings elicit comparable behavioral patterns and whether reading directions modulate lexical processes. Response times and eye movements were recorded during a lexical decision task with Japanese bimorphemic compound words presented vertically. The data were…

The present study investigated the effects of visual complexity for kanji processing by selecting target kanji from different stroke ranges of visually simple (2-6 strokes), medium (8-12 strokes), and complex (14-20 strokes) kanji with high and low frequencies. A kanji lexical decision task in Experiment 1 and a kanji naming task in Experiment 2…

Strategy effects on word searching in the Japanese letter fluency test were investigated using the Near-infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS). Participants were given a Japanese letter fluency test and they were classified into two types of strategy users, based on analysis of their recorded verbal responses. One group, AIUEO-order strategy users, employed…

Indicates that phonological information of both whole-character and of sub-word components (radicals) was automatically activated despite experimental tasks in which subjects were given little incentive to execute phonetic processing. Concludes that the interaction of figurative and phonological processing is due to mutual activation of the whole…

Examines research on the impact of sub-word levels in the computation of word phonology for alphabetic English and logographic Japanese kanji. Suggests some involvement of sub-word level processing in the computation of word phonology in kanji. Suggests structural differences between On-reading words (of Chinese origin) and Kun-reading word (of…

Finds that, because kanji morphemes of opposite and similar concepts are semantically activated both as morpheme units and compound-word units, semantic representations of the two morphemes and the compound word which they create compete with each other at the concept level, which slows down lexical decision and naming of the compound word. (SR)

Offers an introduction to this themed journal issue dealing with the cognitive processing of the Chinese and the Japanese languages. Discusses processing Chinese, processing Japanese, and research needs. (SR)

Finds that, when only one reading is possible, subjects make a judgment directly, but when multiple readings exist for a given character the subjects first compare the possible readings and make inferences; only when this process is complete do they apply a strategy to identify a reading as On (borrowed from Chinese) or Kun (native Japanese). (SR)

Observes in a lexical decision task that polysemy effects were identical for high- and low-frequency katakana words; and that in a naming task, although no word frequency effect was observed, there was a significant polysemy effect which was identical for high- and low-frequency words. Discusses implications about the loci of such polysemy and…

Finds that words were named faster in kana than in kanji but were translated faster in kanji than in kana. Shows that semantic access takes places 10 to 19 msec earlier in kanji words than in kana words, whereas phonological access takes places 27 to 31 msec earlier in kana words than in kanji words. (SR)

Suggests that the role of phonology may be more limited when reading text in Japanese relative to English, and that this difference is not due to variations in orthographic depth. Proposes key factors are the greater visual discriminability of kanji words under degraded conditions and the less important role of word order as a syntactic cue. (SR)

Two experiments investigated the effect of kanji morphemic homophony on lexical decision and naming. Effects were examined from both the left-hand and right-hand positions of Japanese two-kanji compound words. The number of homophones affected the processing of compound words in the same way for both tasks. For left-hand kanji, fewer morphemic…

Examines kanji errors in handwriting of Japanese students and Australian learners of Japanese. Finds that Japanese students' phonologically-related kanji writing errors were most numerous, followed by orthographically-related errors and semantically-related errors; while Australian students wrote more non-existing kanji and made…