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Taking a Radical Position: Evidence for Position-Specific Radical Representations in Chinese Character Recognition Using Masked Priming ERP

In the investigation of orthographic representation of Chinese characters, one question that has stimulated much research is whether radicals (character components) are specified for spatial position in a character (e.g., Ding et al., 2004; Tsang and Chen, 2009). Differing from previous work, compon...

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Autores principales: Su, I.-Fan, Mak, Sin-Ching Cassie, Cheung, Lai-Ying Milly, Law, Sam-Po
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Research Foundation 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3444932/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23024634
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00333
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author Su, I.-Fan
Mak, Sin-Ching Cassie
Cheung, Lai-Ying Milly
Law, Sam-Po
author_facet Su, I.-Fan
Mak, Sin-Ching Cassie
Cheung, Lai-Ying Milly
Law, Sam-Po
author_sort Su, I.-Fan
collection PubMed
description In the investigation of orthographic representation of Chinese characters, one question that has stimulated much research is whether radicals (character components) are specified for spatial position in a character (e.g., Ding et al., 2004; Tsang and Chen, 2009). Differing from previous work, component or radical position information in this study is conceived in terms of relative frequency across different positions of characters containing it. A lexical decision task in a masked priming paradigm focusing on radicals with preferred position of occurrence was conducted. A radical position that encompasses more characters than other positions was identified to be the preferred position of a particular radical. The prime that was exposed for 96 ms might share a radical with the target in the same or different positions. Moreover, the shared radical appeared either in its preferred or non-preferred position in the target. While response latencies only revealed the effect of graphical similarity, both effects of graphical similarity and radical position preference were found in the event-related potential (ERP) results. The former effect was reflected in greater positivity in occipital P1 and greater negativity in N400 for radicals in different positions in prime and target characters. The latter effect manifested as greater negativity in occipital N170 and greater positivity in frontal P200 in the same time window elicited by radicals in their non-preferred position. Equally interesting was the reversal of the effect of radical position preference in N400 with greater negativity associated with radicals in preferred position. These findings identify the early ERP components associated with activation of position-specific radical representations in the orthographic lexicon, and reveal the change in the nature of competition from processing at the radical level to the lexical level.
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spelling pubmed-34449322012-09-28 Taking a Radical Position: Evidence for Position-Specific Radical Representations in Chinese Character Recognition Using Masked Priming ERP Su, I.-Fan Mak, Sin-Ching Cassie Cheung, Lai-Ying Milly Law, Sam-Po Front Psychol Psychology In the investigation of orthographic representation of Chinese characters, one question that has stimulated much research is whether radicals (character components) are specified for spatial position in a character (e.g., Ding et al., 2004; Tsang and Chen, 2009). Differing from previous work, component or radical position information in this study is conceived in terms of relative frequency across different positions of characters containing it. A lexical decision task in a masked priming paradigm focusing on radicals with preferred position of occurrence was conducted. A radical position that encompasses more characters than other positions was identified to be the preferred position of a particular radical. The prime that was exposed for 96 ms might share a radical with the target in the same or different positions. Moreover, the shared radical appeared either in its preferred or non-preferred position in the target. While response latencies only revealed the effect of graphical similarity, both effects of graphical similarity and radical position preference were found in the event-related potential (ERP) results. The former effect was reflected in greater positivity in occipital P1 and greater negativity in N400 for radicals in different positions in prime and target characters. The latter effect manifested as greater negativity in occipital N170 and greater positivity in frontal P200 in the same time window elicited by radicals in their non-preferred position. Equally interesting was the reversal of the effect of radical position preference in N400 with greater negativity associated with radicals in preferred position. These findings identify the early ERP components associated with activation of position-specific radical representations in the orthographic lexicon, and reveal the change in the nature of competition from processing at the radical level to the lexical level. Frontiers Research Foundation 2012-09-18 /pmc/articles/PMC3444932/ /pubmed/23024634 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00333 Text en Copyright © 2012 Su, Mak, Cheung and Law. http://www.frontiersin.org/licenseagreement This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.
spellingShingle Psychology
Su, I.-Fan
Mak, Sin-Ching Cassie
Cheung, Lai-Ying Milly
Law, Sam-Po
Taking a Radical Position: Evidence for Position-Specific Radical Representations in Chinese Character Recognition Using Masked Priming ERP
title Taking a Radical Position: Evidence for Position-Specific Radical Representations in Chinese Character Recognition Using Masked Priming ERP
title_full Taking a Radical Position: Evidence for Position-Specific Radical Representations in Chinese Character Recognition Using Masked Priming ERP
title_fullStr Taking a Radical Position: Evidence for Position-Specific Radical Representations in Chinese Character Recognition Using Masked Priming ERP
title_full_unstemmed Taking a Radical Position: Evidence for Position-Specific Radical Representations in Chinese Character Recognition Using Masked Priming ERP
title_short Taking a Radical Position: Evidence for Position-Specific Radical Representations in Chinese Character Recognition Using Masked Priming ERP
title_sort taking a radical position: evidence for position-specific radical representations in chinese character recognition using masked priming erp
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3444932/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23024634
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00333
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