Abstract
The present study investigated the interaction of semantic and orthographic processing during compound sinogram recognition, using event related potentials (ERPs) and a picture-word matching task. The behavioral results showed that participants generally needed more time to make a response and were more prone to make mistakes, when the paired mismatch sinogram was orthographically similar or semantically related to the picture’s matching name. The N400 results indicated the main effect of semantics and the significant interaction of semantics by orthography. Moreover, only under the semantically related condition (S+), the mean amplitude of N400 was more negative going in orthographically similar condition (O+) than in orthographically dissimilar one (O-), while there was no significant difference under the semantically unrelated condition (S-). Consequently, the sub-lexical orthographic information plays an important role in discriminating the sinograms sharing related semantics.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bi, Y., Xu, Y., Caramazza, A.: Orthographic and phonological effects in the picture–word interference paradigm: Evidence from a logographic language. Applied Psycholinguistics 30, 637–658 (2009)
Brown, C., Hagoort, P.: The processing nature of the N400: Evidence from masked priming. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 5, 34–44 (1993)
Brown, C., Hagoort, P., Chwilla, J.D.: An event-related brain potential analysis of visual word priming effects. Brain and Language 72, 158–190 (2000)
Chen, M.J., Weekes, S.B.: Effects of semantic radicals on Chinese character categorization and character decision. Chinese Journal of Psychology 46, 181–196 (2004)
Ding, G., Peng, D., Taft, M.: The nature of the mental representation of radicals in Chinese: a priming study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 30, 530 (2004)
Grainger, J., Jacobs, M.A.: Orthographic processing in visual word recognition: a multiple read-out model. Psychological Review 3, 518 (1996)
Hamm, P.J., Johnson, W.B., Kirk, J.I.: Comparison of the N300 and N400 ERPs to picture stimuli in congruent and incongruent contexts. Clinical Neurophysiology 8, 1339–1350 (2002)
Lau, F.E., Phillips, C., Poeppel, D.: A cortical network for semantics: (de) constructing the N400. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9, 920–933 (2008)
Lupker, J.S.: The role of phonetic and orthographic similarity in picture–word interference. Canadian Journal of Psychology/Revue Canadienne de Psychologie 3, 349 (1982)
Mathilde, M., Johannes, Z.: Locus of orthographic effects in spoken word recognition: Novel insights from the neighbor generation task. Language and Cognitive Processes 19, 641–660 (2004)
Racine, I., Grosjean, F.: The cost of deleting a schwa at the time of recognition of French words. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology 59, 240–254 (2005)
Roelofs, A., Meyer, S.A., Levelt, J.W.: Interaction between semantic and orthographic factors in conceptually driven naming: Comment on Starreveld and La Heij (1995). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 22, 246–251 (1996)
Starreveld, A.P., La, H.-W.: Time-course analysis of semantic and orthographic context effects in picture naming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 22, 896 (1995)
Su, I.-F., Yeung, S.-T., Weekes, S.B., Law, S.-P.: Locus of orthographic facilitation effect in spoken word production: evidence from cantonese chinese. In: 8th International Symposium on Chinese Spoken Language Processing (ISCSLP), pp. 440–444 (2012)
Snodgrass, G.J., Vanderwart, M.: A standardized set of 260 pictures: norms for name agreement, image agreement, familiarity, and visual complexity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory 6, 174 (1980)
Taft, M.: Processing of characters by native Chinese readers. In: The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics, vol. 1, pp. 237–249. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2006)
Underwood, G., Briggs, P.: The development of word recognition processes. British Journal of Psychology 2, 243–255 (1984)
Wang, W.S.-Y., Tsai, Y.C.: The alphabet and the sinogram. Dyslexia across cultures. Brookes Publishing, Baltimore (2011)
Yum, N.Y., Law, S.-P., Su, I.-F., Lau, D.K.-Y., Mo, N.K.: An ERP study of effects of regularity and consistency in delayed naming and lexicality judgment in a logographic writing system. Frontiers in Psychology 5, 315 (2014)
Zhang, Q., Chen, H.-C., Weekes, S.B., Yang, Y.: Independent effects of orthographic and phonological facilitation on spoken word production in Mandarin. Language and Speech 52, 113–126 (2009)
Zhang, Q., Damian, F.M.: Effects of orthography on speech production in Chinese. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 41, 267–283 (2012)
Zhang, C., Peng, G., Wang, W.S.-Y.: Achieving constancy in spoken word identification: Time course of talker normalization. Brain and Language 126, 193–202 (2013)
Zhang, Q., Weekes, S.B.: Orthographic facilitation effects on spoken word production: Evidence from Chinese. Language and Cognitive Processes 24, 1082–1096 (2009)
Zhou, X., Marslen-Wilson, W.: Sublexical processing in reading Chinese. In: Reading Chinese Script: A Cognitive Analysis, pp. 37–63 (1999)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Zhang, H., Chen, F., Yan, N., Wang, L., Su, IF., Ng, M.L. (2016). The Interaction of Semantic and Orthographic Processing During Chinese Sinograms Recognition: An ERP Study. In: Dong, M., Lin, J., Tang, X. (eds) Chinese Lexical Semantics. CLSW 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10085. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49508-8_66
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49508-8_66
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-49507-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-49508-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)