Work

Visual word processing efficiency for Chinese characters and English words

Year: 2023

Type: article

Abstract: The Word Superiority Effect (WSE) refers to the phenomenon where a single letter is recognized more accurately when presented within a word, compared to when it is presented alone or in a random string. However, previous research has produced conflicting findings regarding whether this effect also occurs in the processing of Chinese characters. The current study employed the capacity coefficient, a measure derived from the Systems Factorial Technology framework, to investigate processing efficiency and test for the superiority effect in Chinese characters and English words. We hypothesized that WSE would result in more efficient processing of characters/words compared to their individual components, as reflected by super capacity processing. However, contrary to our predictions, results from both the "same" (Experiment 1) and "different" (Experiment 2) judgment tasks revealed that native Chinese speakers exhibited limited processing capacity (inefficiency) for both English words and Chinese characters. In addition, results supported an English WSE with participants integrating English words and pseudowords more efficiently than nonwords, and decomposing nonwords more efficiently than words and pseudowords. In contrast, no superiority effect was observed for Chinese characters. To conclude, the current work suggests that the superiority effect only applies to English processing efficiency with specific context rules and does not extend to Chinese characters.

Source: Acta Psychologica

DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103986

Authors: Hanshu Zhang, Paul M. Garrett, Pei-Yi Lin, Joseph W. Houpt, Cheng-Ta Yang

Institutions: Central China Normal University, The University of Melbourne, National Cheng Kung University, The University of Texas at San Antonio, Taipei Medical University

Language: English

Topic: Reading and Literacy Development

Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,650