1992 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
An Experimental Study of the Script Type Effect on Japanese Word Recognition.
| Project/Area Number |
03610036
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
Psychology
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| Research Institution | Ibaraki University |
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Principal Investigator |
HAYASHI Ryuhei Ibaraki University, Faculty of Education, Associate Professor,, 教育学部, 助教授 (70125798)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1991 – 1992
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| Keywords | Word Recognition / Kanji Character / Kana Character / Script Type / Homograph / Semantic Ambiguity / Phonological Coding / Concurrent Vocal Interference |
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| Research Abstract |
Past 10-year research on the word recognition in Japanese has repeatedly shown that there is an interaction between the script type of the word (Kana or Kanji) and the nature of the task imposed on the word.Specifically, it has been shown that comprehension of Kanji words is faster than that of Kana words, whereas naming latency of Kana words is faster than that of Kanji words. This phenomenon is called "the script type effect" in this paper. Some researchers have believed that this effect is due to an asymmetry concerning the necessity of prelexical phonological coding between Kana words and Kanji words. That is to say, it has been held that prelexical phonological coding is indispensable for the lexical access of Kana words while it is not for that of Kanji words. But some other studies have suggested that semantic ambiguity caused by many homographic words written in Kana is a prime reason for the occurrence of the effect.
The aim of the present study is to examine which of the above two hypotheses is more adequate. To test these hypotheses, a series of eight experiments were conducted. The results showed that the script type effect on semantic decision task disappeared when Kana words which have no homographs were used as stimuli. The concurrent vocal interference task and the phonological masking task, both of which disturb prelexical phonological coding, did not affect the script type effect observed in the difference between semantic decision time of Kanji words and that of Kana words which have homographs. These results suggest that the semantic ambiguity hypothesis is more adequate than the prelexical phonological coding hypothesis to explain the script type effect on semantic decision task in Japanese word recognition.
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