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To separate the contribution of phonological from that of visual-orthographic information in the recognition of a Chinese word that is composed of one or two Chinese characters, we conducted two experiments in a priming task of semantic categorization (PTSC), in which length (one- or two-character words), relation, prime (related or unrelated prime...
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Citations
... Current studies have demonstrated that when Chinese English learners see L2 words, they can activate the corresponding L1 translation equivalents (Zhang et al., 2011). For a Chinese native speaker, an L1 word will activate another L1 word through phonology (Ma et al., 2016). In short, both cross-language semantic activation in L2-L1, and phonological activation in the same language have been verified. ...
... Thus, the study proved a strong interference effect of phonology on semantic access at the character level, where phonological information is difficult to suppress and phonological activation occurs automatically along with lexical-semantic processing. Ma et al. (2016) also explored the activation of Chinese homophones at the two-character level using the priming paradigm of the semantic category classification task. They found that when the SOA was 47 ms, the phonological information of the priming word "景观" (jing[3] guan[1], meaning landscape) was extracted, which promoted the activation of the phonological representation of the target word "警官" (jing[3] guan[1], meaning police officer), thus contributing to the semantic activation and shortening the response time of the participants to complete the task. ...
This study used an eye-tracking method to examine whether Chinese translation equivalents activated by English prime words can continue to activate their Chinese homophones. With 30 English prime words, and 60 Chinese target words as materials, the experiment used a Tobii eye-tracking device to collect data from 30 university students while completing an English-Chinese lexical semantic-judgment task, aimed at investigating whether (1) when Chinese English learners see the English words, they can activate the homophones of Chinese translation equivalents; and (2) there is a word frequency effect in cross-language lexical activation, i.e., Chinese translation equivalents with different word frequencies have different effects on the activation speed. Compared with low-frequency Chinese translation equivalents, high-frequency Chinese equivalents can facilitate the activation faster and easier. The two research hypotheses were confirmed on several eye movement indicators, supporting the cross-language lexical activation as well as word-frequency effect of Chinese translation equivalents. This is also the first verification of cross-language dual-link lexical activation which engage both semantics and phonology, indicating that L2-L1 semantic activation has strong stability for further phonological activation.
... That is, consistent with the conclusion that words are the basic units in the mental lexicon (Dronjic, 2011) and in sentence reading (Bai et al., 2008) by skilled readers, the examined 2C-words were taken as whole entities by participants in the present study. The significant correlation between concreteness and imageability of 2C-words is similar to the case of Chinese characters (Liu et al., 2007), confirming the conclusion that 2C-words are similar to 1C-words in semantic representations (Ma et al., 2016). ...
... The relatively weaker correlation between concreteness and imageability can be understood from two aspects. The recognition of a 2C-word is similar to that of a 1C-word in retrieving semantic representations, but 1C-words are more likely than 2C-words to be taken as wholes in cognitive tasks (Ma et al., 2016). Indeed, one has to assign cognition resources to the processing of its individual characters in the early stage of 2C-word recognition . ...
... Firstly, the processing of configurational information of both 1C-words and 2C-words helps trigger activations of the semantic representations. For example, 两 (two) and 拳击 (boxing) are similar to 雨 (rain) and 泰山 (Taishan Mount), respectively, only in configuration, and perceptions of 两 and拳击 resulted in activations of semantic representations for雨 and 泰山, respectively (Ma et al., 2016). ...
Over 70% of the more than 56,000 most frequently used words in simplified Chinese are two-character words (2C-words). The present study collected data on subtitle frequency, number of strokes, number of meanings, familiarity, concreteness, imageability, age of acquisition, subjective frequency, subjective number of meanings (sNOMs), compositionality, emotional experience rating, sensory experience rating (SER), and semantic transparency (ST) for 3,783 commonly used 2C-words. Correlative patterns were identified between the 13 variables, all of which, with the exception of imageability, SER, and sNOM, were significantly predictive of the changes in participants’ RTs in LDs on the target words. In conclusion, skilled readers’ awareness of 2C-words’ features such as concreteness, imageability, compositionality, sNOM, and ST is closely associated with their semantic perception of the constituent characters.
... The first measure, segment length (SegLen), has been used in the literature to investigate the syllable's internal phonological structure (Wu & Kenstowicz, 2015). Meanwhile, syllable length (SyLen) has played a role in the study of Mandarin, particularly as to whether differential processing costs exist between monosyllabic and disyllabic words (Ma et al., 2016). Finally, we offer Pinyin length (PyLen). ...
In this article we present the Database of Word-Level Statistics for Mandarin Chinese (DoWLS-MAN). The database addresses the lack of agreement in phonological syllable segmentation specific to Mandarin by offering phonological features for each lexical item according to 16 schematic representations of the syllable (8 with tone and 8 without tone). Those lexical statistics that differ per phonological word and nonword due to changes in syllable segmentation are of the variant category and include subtitle lexical frequency, phonological neighborhood density measures, homophone density, and network science measures. The invariant characteristics consist of each items' lexical tone, phonological transcription, and syllable structure among others. The goal of DoWLS-MAN is to provide researchers both the ability to choose stimuli that are derived from a segmentation schema that supports an existing model of Mandarin speech processing, and the ability to choose stimuli that allow for the testing of hypotheses on phonological segmentation according to multiple schemas. In an exploratory analysis we illustrate how multiple schematic representations of the phonological mental lexicon can aid in hypothesis generation, specifically in terms of phonological processing when reading Chinese orthography. Users of the database can search among over 92,000 words, over 1600 out-of-vocabulary Chinese characters, and 4300 phonological nonwords according to either Chinese orthography, pinyin, or ASCII phonetic script. Users can also generate a list of phonological words and nonwords according to user-defined ranges and categories of lexical characteristics. DoWLS-MAN is available to the public for search or download at https://dowls.site.
... The N400 component could appear in the wide 200-600-ms time window, as noted by Kutas and Federmeier (2011). Researchers have demonstrated that the visual configuration of two-character Chinese words has its own contribution in triggering activation of the meaning of word (Ma et al., 2015). This study revealed a more negative N250 amplitude for canonical words than for transposed words, see Figures 3A, 4A, suggesting that transposed words could be more easily processed as "legitimate" compound words and further integrated into a whole for LVF presentations. ...
This study examined the brain activity elicited by the hemispheric asymmetries and morpheme transposition of two-character Chinese words (canonical and transposed word) and pseudowords using event-related potentials (ERPs) with a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. Electrophysiological results showed facilitation effects for canonical words with centrally presented visual field (CVF) and right visual field (RVF) presentations but not with left visual field (LVF) presentations, as reflected by less negative N400 amplitudes. Moreover, more positive late positive component (LPC) amplitudes were observed for both canonical words and transposed words irrespective of the visual fields. More importantly, transposed words elicited a more negative N400 amplitude and a less positive LPC amplitude compared with the amplitudes elicited by canonical words for CVF and RVF presentations. For LVF presentations, transposed words elicited a less negative N250 amplitude compared with canonical words, and there was no significant difference between canonical words and transposed words in the N400 effect. Taken together, we concluded that character transposition facilitated the mapping of whole-word orthographic representation to semantic information in the LVF, as reflected by the N250 component, and such morpheme transposition influenced whole-word semantic processing in CVF and RVF presentations, as reflected by N400 and LPC components.
... In addition, the impact of vWM load can also be reflected in the search slopes of target-present trials and target-absent trials. The efficiency of searching novel target would be decreased by the extra vWM load, while the efficiency of rejecting distractors might not be affected, as the processing of overlearned Chinese characters may be automatic and effortless 32,33 . In this case, we hypothesized that visual search efficiency in dual-task condition would be lower than that in single-task condition when the target is present, but be similar when the target is absent. ...
Familiarity effect refers to the phenomenon that searching for a novel target among familiar distractors is more efficient than that searching for a familiar target among novel distractors. While the familiarity of distractors is considered as a key role on familiarity effect, the familiarity of targets contribute to this asymmetric visual search is unclear. The present study investigated how target familiarity influences visual search efficiency from the perspective of perceptual load. Experiment 1 using two similar Chinese characters (“甲” and “由”) suggested that searching for a familiar target from familiar distractors is an inefficient search process in Chinese context. Experiment 2 adopted a dual-task paradigm with a visual working memory task to increase the perceptual load and attempt to affect the efficiency of searching a novel target (mirrored “舌”) from familiar distractors (“舌”). Results demonstrated no difference in the search efficiency between single and dual-task conditions. The present study suggests that the familiarity of target does not influence the search efficiency with familiar distractors when involving semantic processing of Chinese characters. Additionally, the interference of extra working memory load would not impair the efficiency of searching target among familiar distractors, supporting the critical effect of distractor familiarity on the efficiency of visual search.
... Treating a two-character word as a single input unit bypasses the need to retrieve lower level information within each character. As a result, processing two-character words were less demanding than processing one-character words (Ma, Wang, & Li, 2016). With a holistic approach to processing known words, perhaps the underlying cognitive processes and their time course during single-character and two-character word recognition should be highly similar. ...
Word reading involves a series of cognitive processes, from lower-level visual processing to word semantic retrieval. To investigate the timing of the underlying neurocognitive processes in reading, the current study examined the electrophysiological correlates of cognitive functions associated with traditional Chinese word reading in Hong Kong children (Age: M = 8.19, SD = 0.82 years old) using event-related potentials (ERPs). A single-character lexical decision task and a two-character word lexical decision task were used to explore different levels of Chinese word processing. One-hundred ten children's data were analyzed. Results revealed that radical level processing was related to a P1 component at as early as 130 ms. Character-level processing was related to an N1 component from 218 ms onwards. Two-character word semantic processing was related to an N400-like component at as early as 450 ms. The results show a similar time course of visual word processing as previously reported in alphabetic languages, consistent with increasing specialization in the ventral visual stream for increasing wordlikeness leading to processing of linguistic aspects in higher-level language regions.
... One line of studies suggests that phonological information is automatically processed in the recognition of written words (e.g., Chen, Vaid, & Wu, 2009;Tan, Hoosain, & Peng, 1995;Tan, Hoosain, & Siok, 1996;Weekes, Chen, & Lin, 1998). Phonology plays a crucial role in mediating activations of semantic representations (Guo, Peng, & Liu, 2005;Kong et al., 2010;Leck, Weekes, & Chen, 1995;Li, Lin, Wang, & Jiang, 2013;Ma, Wang, & Li, 2016;Perfetti & Zhang, 1995;Spinks, Liu, Perfetti, & Tan, 2000;Tan & Perfetti, 1997;Xu, Pollatsek, & Potter, 1999;Q. Zhang, Zhang, & Kong, 2009;S. ...
... Zhang, Perfetti, & Yang, 1999;). In a priming task of semantic categorization (Ma et al., 2016), for example, the participants responded faster to the targets (e.g., 杯 [bei1] cup; 警 官 [jing3guan1] policeman) that were preceded by the homophone primes (e.g., 悲 [bei1] sad; 景观 [jing3guan1] landscape) than they did to those that were preceded by the controls (e.g., 话 [hua4] word; 估计 [gu1ji4] estimate) at the SOA (stimulus onset asynchrony) of 47 ms. However, the 861502S GOXXX10.1177/2158244019861502SAGE ...
... OpenWang and Li research-article20192019 1 Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, China 2 Qufu Normal University, Rizhao, China participants' reaction times to the targets that were semantically related to the primes were facilitated (e.g., 碟 [die2] dish; 法医 [fa3yi1] court doctor) at the SOA of 87 ms. The mandatory involvement of the processing of phonological information in accessing the semantic representations of the targets in Ma et al. (2016) seems to confirm Perfetti and Tan's (1998) conclusion on the possibility of meaning retrieval as a result of the processing of phonological information. ...
To examine the processing of phonological and configurational information in word recognition in discourse reading, we conducted two experiments using the self-paced reading paradigm. The materials were three-sentence discourses, in each of which the last word of the second sentence and the third word from the end of the last sentence formed a prime–target pair. The discourse in which the target word (T) was semantically congruent or incongruent with the prime word was converted into a new version by replacing the T with its homophone or with the control word (con-T) in Experiment 1. Similarly, the Ts were replaced by words that were similar to them in configuration or by the con-Ts in Experiment 2. We adopted mixed-effects modeling to analyze the participants’ reading times to the targets, the first words after the targets, and the second words after the targets. It is concluded that the processing of phonological information begins earlier than that of configurational information in activating the semantic representations for the upcoming words that fit the context in discourse reading.
... There were 12 practice trials prior to the formal experiment. Each trial (see Figure 1) began with the 500 ms mask of a special symbol that was created by overlapping several complicated Chinese characters (Ma, Wang, & Li, 2016). Then the Chinese prime was presented on the screen for 50 ms, followed by another 10 ms mask. ...
Aims:
The present study aims to examine the cross-script cognate facilitation effect that cognates have processing advantages over non-cognates and this effect is strong evidence supporting the non-selective access hypothesis for bilinguals.
Methodology:
By adopting a masked translation priming paradigm, Experiment 1 used 48 Chinese–English cognates (Chinese words) and 48 non-cognates (Chinese words) as primes and their English translation equivalences as targets. Chinese–English bilinguals were instructed to judge whether the target stimuli were real words or not. In Experiment 2, another group of participants took the same lexical decision task as in Experiment 1, except that English–Chinese cognates and non-cognates (English words) served as primes and their Chinese translation equivalences were targets.
Data and analysis:
Response latency and accuracy data were submitted to a repeated-measures analysis of variance.
Findings/conclusions:
Experiment 1 showed that Chinese–English cognates (Chinese words) and non-cognates (Chinese words) produced similar priming effect, while Experiment 2 revealed that English–Chinese cognates (English words) generated a significant priming effect, whereas non-cognates (English words) failed to induce any priming effect. Overall, Chinese words did not show cognate advantage, while English words produced a significant cognate facilitation effect. These results might be attributed to different mappings from orthography to phonology in English and Chinese. Opaque mapping from orthography to phonology in Chinese hindered phonological activation and reduced Chinese–English cognate phonological priming effect. However, English–Chinese cognates benefited from transparent mapping from sound to print and thus generated a significant phonological priming effect. Implications of the current findings for bilingual word recognition models were discussed.
Originality:
The present study is the first to investigate the cross-script cognate facilitation effect by ensuring both the heterogeneity of primes and targets (English and Chinese) and the homogeneity of primes (Chinese or English). The results indicated that the writing systems of the primes constrained the cross-script cognate priming effect.
... There were 12 practice trials prior to the formal experiment. Each trial (see Figure 1) began with the 500 ms mask of a special symbol that was created by overlapping several complicated Chinese characters (Ma, Wang, & Li, 2016). Then the Chinese prime was presented on the screen for 50 ms, followed by another 10 ms mask. ...
Previous studies found that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were less sensitive to the variations of lexical stress in their native language. However, no study has been conducted to explore the perception of lexical stress in the second language among individuals with ASD. Using ERP (event-related potential) measurement with an oddball paradigm, the current study examined and compared the neural responses by Chinese-English bilingual children with ASD and typically developing controls in the processing of English lexical stress. The results showed that when compared with typically developing controls, children with ASD manifested reduced MMN (mismatch negativity) amplitude at the left temporal-parietal and parietal sites, indicating that they were less sensitive to lexical stress. However, a more negative MMN response was found for ASD group than for typically developing group at the right central-parietal, temporal-parietal, and temporal sites. In addition, the right hemisphere was more activated than the left hemisphere for ASD group, which might be derived from the reversed asymmetry of brain activation for people with ASD when processing language-related stimuli.
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