The Modulation Effects Of The Position Of Semantic Radicals On Their Semantic Activation

More than 80% of Chinese Characters are phonograms,which are composed by semantic radicals and phonetic radicals.At present,many studies have been carried out toward the phonological activation of phonetic radicals,whereas little attention has been paid on semantic access of semantic radicals.Some investigations,though,have confirmed that semantic radicals could activate their own semantic information,and that activation was regulated by some factors both at host character and sub-character levels,such as semantic transparency,semantic familiarity and semantic combinability of semantic radicals.The existing research on the regulating factors of semantic activation of phonograms,however,has not reached a consensus,and whether the semantic activation of pseudo characters and non-characters could be activated or not and what factors regulate this activation need to be further explored.Considering this,the present study examined whether the semantic information activation of semantic radicals in phonograms,pseudo characters and non-characters could be accessed,as well as factors regulating that activation,with research questions as follows:(1)Is the semantic activation of semantic radicals in phonograms modulated by semantic relatedness,semantic radical status and frequency of phonograms?(2)Is there semantic activation of character semantic radicals embedded in pseudo characters? And is that activation regulated by the frequency of position of character semantic radicals?(3)Is there semantic activation of non-character semantic radicals embedded in non-characters? And is that activation modulated by validity of non-character semantic radicals’ position?Two experiments were conducted to answer the above questions.40 postgraduate students from Sichuan International Studies University were selected as subjects,and the behavioral data(reaction time and accuracy)were recorded when they made judgments on the target words.In Experiment One,2(Semantic Relatedness: Related,Unrelated)× 2(Phonogram Frequency: High frequency,Low frequency)× 2(Semantic Radical Type: Character Semantic Radical,Non-Character Semantic Radical)was designed to answer question one.The experimental materials included 96 sinogram as primes(semantically related primes and semantically unrelated primes)and 96 phonograms as targets(48 phonograms with free-standing semantic radicals and another 48 phonograms with non-character semantic radicals);The Experiment Two was designed to use a 2(Semantic Relatedness: Related,Unrelated)× 2(Semantic Radical Type: Character Semantic Radical;Non-Character Semantic Radical)× 2(Character Type: Pseudo-character,Non-character)to answer question two and three.The experimental materials included 96 sinograms of two kinds as primes(semantically related primes and semantically unrelated primes)and 48 target characters of four kinds(48 pseudo characters and 48 non-characters).All the experiments were programmed with E-Prime 2.0 software,with the experimental data analyzed by SPSS 26.0.The whole experiments were conducted at the Behavioral Experiment Room of Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Foreign Language Learning located in Sichuan International Studies University.Results were as follows:Experiment One found that:(1)the main effect of semantic relatedness was significant,F(1,39)=.007,p =.000 <.05,which indicated that participants’ RTs toward phonograms preceded by semantically related primes were significantly different from that preceded by unrelated primes.The related primes could facilitate the recognition of phonograms;(2)the main effect of phonogram frequency was prominent,F(1,39)= 191.042,p =.000 <.05,implying that there was a significant difference in RTs between phonograms with high frequency and low frequency.Specifically,participants would judge phonograms with high frequency more quickly than that with low frequency;(3)a significant interactive effect between phonogram frequency and semantic relatedness was found,F(1,39)= 5.782,p =.021 <.05,indicating that the frequency of phonograms and semantic relatedness between phonograms and their priming characters jointly affected the reaction time of the judgment.Experiment Two proposed that:(1)main effect of semantic relatedness reached significance,F(1,39)=8.848,p=.004<.05,which indicated that there was a significant difference between RTs under semantically related condition and unrelated condition.Specifically,semantically related primes would inhibit recognition of pseudo characters with a longer reaction time,but facilitate non-characters processing with a shorter reaction time;(2)main effect of Chinese Character types was prominent,F(1,39)= 1024.79,p=.00<.05,implying that pseudo-characters and non-characters enjoyed distinctive processing patterns;(3)interactive effect of semantic radical type and character type was significant,F(1,39)= 7.40,p=.008<.05,showing that a joint action of semantic radical type and character type toward meaning access of their embedded semantic radicals exists;(4)interactive effect of semantic relatedness and character type reached significance,F(1,39)= 8.71,p=.004<.05,indicating that semantic relatedness and character type could work together to influence the meaning extraction of semantic radicals within pseudo characters and non-characters.On the basis of the above findings,there existed semantic activation of semantic radicals within phonograms,pseudo characters and non-characters.This meaning retrieval could be modulated by semantic relatedness and character frequency within phonograms,whereas that access be regulated by semantic relatedness and character type,confirming the role of positional information of semantic radicals during the meaning access.Specifically,it was easier to achieve meaning retrieval for character semantic radicals at primary positions than at subordinate positions within pseudo characters,demonstrating the role of position frequency effect of stranding-free semantic radicals.And the semantic activation of non-character semantic radicals at legal positions could be accessed easier than at illegal positions within non-characters,showing a positional legal effect of non-character semantic radicals.The present study confirmed the contribution of positional information of semantic radicals during sub-lexical meaning processing,adding more evidence to studies of regulators of semantic radicals’ meaning activation,further supplementing the deficiency of the research on non-character semantic radicals,which provided empirical reference for more comprehensive Chinese Character processing model and theoretical research,as well as a deeper understanding of the psychological processing mechanism of Chinese Characters.In addition,better in-depth understanding of Chinese Character cognitive processing helps to analyze the injury path of different sinogram processing disorders more accurately,as well as provides reference for rehabilitation training.Finally,further comprehending of the interactive activation of Chinese Characters at the host and sub lexical level helps to cultivate the functional and positional awareness of semantic radicals in Chinese first and second language teaching,so as to explore more effective sinogram learning strategies.