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…

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…

Considers specific aspects of phonological and orthographic processing in Chinese that may differ from those in English. Emphasizes that early phonological processes and phonological mediation are two different questions in the identification-with-phonology hypothesis. Shows that "mediation" and "prelexical phonology," two very…

Finds phonological priming effects on compound targets (characters containing separate radical components); no evidence of phonological priming on integrated targets (those not containing separate radicals); semantic priming effects on both compound and integrated target recognition, suggesting that phonological and semantic activation are…

Investigates how a person comprehends a subject-verb-object sentence. Obtains effects of both reference scope and location of superordinates. Supports a slot-filling model of sentence comprehension (which should apply to English as well as Chinese sentences) in which subjects successively create a slot for filling the previously integrated unit in…

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)

Examines the role of context effects in the processing of homophones in Chinese and Chinese-English bilingual speech. Finds that prior sentence context has an early effect on the disambiguation of various homophone meanings in both monolingual and bilingual situations. Accounts for results by interactive activation models of lexical processing.…

Investigates the size and shape of the effective visual field in Chinese reading by systematically manipulating the availability of meaningful information on both sides of a fixated character. Shows that the effective visual field was asymmetric and skewed in the direction of scanning with a highly limited size, composed of the fixated character…

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…