Eye-Movement Study On Chinese Characters Recognition In Children And Adults

The recognition of Chinese characters which contains kinds of information process such like grapheme and phoneme is very suitable for investigating the cognitive process and mechanism. As the basis understanding of written language, the recognition of Chinese characters is important for developing the ability of reading. In addition, the Chinese characters are one of the oldest and the most widely used words in the world, compared with the alphabetic characters, it has some unique characteristics. Therefore, the study on Chinese characters recognition is one of the most flourishing fields concerned by researchers in different disciplines, and it also has been a growing interest in psychology.There are certain corresponding relationships between eye movements and reading process. Compared with the traditional cognition research methods, the technique of eye tracker could avoid disturbing in normal reading, and it is possible to measure the on-line cognition construction process directly. It provides a more ecological variable and a new research view for the study of Chinese characters recognition.This study was carried out to investigate the effect of grapheme and phoneme in Chinese characters recognition between children and adults, and explore the on-line cognition characteristics between the beginner and the skilled reader, in order to obtain the characteristics of the development in Chinese characters recognition. Semantic decision task was used. Participants were adults and primary students from grade 3 and grade 5. The recognition process of high frequency Chinese characters and low frequency Chinese characters were measured by eye tracker.The results were as follows: (1) Grapheme and phoneme made different effects in recognition of high frequency Chinese characters and low frequency Chinese characters in children. Only graphic effects were shown in the recognition of high frequency Chinese characters. No effects from grapheme and phoneme were shown in the recognition of low frequency Chinese characters.(2) The adults were not affected by grapheme and phoneme in the recognition of high frequency Chinese characters and low frequency Chinese characters.(3) The ability of Chinese characters cognition is improved by the reading age increased. The influences of subject type on processing time were marginally significant or significant in recognition of high and low frequency Chinese characters. The differences of processing time between Primary students of grade 3 and adults were bigger than the differences between Primary students of grade 5 and adults.(4) The differences of processing time between children and adults in recognition of high frequency Chinese characters were mainly showed in the similar Chinese characters, and it was caused by the interference of grapheme. The ability of grapheme distinction and the mastery of relationship between grapheme and meaning of similar high frequency Chinese characters are in developing. The differences of processing time between children and adults were reduced by children's age increased. Primary students of grade 3 significantly spent more processing time than adults. There were no significant differences between Primary students of grade 5 and adults.The results were consistent with some other off-line task researches. It brings some suggestions for Chinese characters teaching that grapheme and the relationship between grapheme and meaning of Chinese characters need to be emphasized. It is helpful for teaching practice in promoting the Chinese characters cognition of children.