A Study On Phonological Activation Difference Of Character Radicals In Different Positions During Chinese Characters Recognition

Chinese is one of the most complex languages in the world.Most Chinese characters are composed of semantic radicals and phonetic radicals,which form compound characters to symbol Chinese morphemes and syllables in a square-shaped symbol system.In recent years,the cognitive mode of Chinese character processing has been a hot topic,and the processing of its radical at sub-lexical level has been an attracting issue in Chinese character processing researches.However,the cognitive differences of Chinese character radicals in different positions have not been fully studied.In this study,RT experimental technology was used to collect behavioral data to explore the location effects of character radicals on sub-lexical phonological activation in Chinese character recognition.The research questions are as follows:(1)Can the phonological information of character radicals be activated during Chinese character recognition?(2)If it can be activated,what is the difference between the phonological activation of the radical located on the left and the radical located on the right?There were two experiments in this study.Experiment 1 used a two-level single-factor(relatedness: related,control)within-subject experiment design.In Experiment 2,a two-factor within-subject experiment design was adopted: 2(relatedness: sub-lexical related,sub-lexical control)× 2(position: left position,right position).E-Prime 2.0 software was used to program the experiment,and the reaction time to the target characters were recorded.Thirty-four postgraduates from Sichuan International Studies University were chosen as subjects of the experiments that were completed in the Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neurology in Foreign Language Learning,Sichuan International Studies University.Finally,SPSS 22.0 was used to analyze the experimental data,and the results were as follows:(1)In the processing of Chinese characters,there were significant differences between the reaction time of the subjects in processing the sub-lexical related characters and the sub-lexical control characters.When processing target 1 characters that were homophones of the left radicals of the sub-lexical related characters,the reaction time under sub-lexical related priming condition was faster than that under the sub-lexical control priming condition(t=-2.052,p =.048<.05).Meanwhile,when processing target 2 characters that were homophones of the right radicals of the sub-lexical related characters,the reaction time under the sub-lexical related priming condition was also faster than that under the sub-lexical control priming condition(t=-2.274,P =.030<.05).Through comparison of the reaction time,the results showed that the phonological information of both the left radical and the right radical can be activated in the recognition of characters.(2)In the processing of Chinese characters,the main effect of sub-lexical relatedness was significant,F=5.629,p=.018<.05,showing that there were significant differences between the reaction time under sub-lexical related priming condition and that under sub-lexical control priming condition,which indicated that sub-lexical relatedness had an impact on the processing of Chinese characters.In addition,the main effect of position and the interaction between relatedness and position were not significant.However,further analysis by paired sample t-test showed that there were significant differences between the reaction time under the right sub-lexical related priming condition and that under the right sub-lexical control priming condition(t=-2.198,p=.035<.05),and the reaction time of the subjects under right sub-lexical related priming condition was faster than that under left sub-lexical control condition.However,there was no significant difference between the response time under the left sub-lexical related priming condition and that under the left sub-lexical control priming condition(t=-1.631,p=.112>.05),but the reaction time of the subjects under the left sub-lexical related priming condition was still faster than that under the left sub-lexical control priming condition.By comparison,it was shown that there were significant differences in the activation of phonological information of the same character radical in different positions and the phonological activation of the radical located on the right was stronger than that of the radical located on the left.In conclusion,the phonological information of the character radicals can be activated during Chinese character processing,and the position can affect the phonological activation of the character radicals.Therefore,it indicates that sub-lexical processing is involved in character processing and the right radical contributes more than the left radical in the recognition of characters.Finally,this finding is conductive to strengthening the positional awareness in character teaching and providing clinical suggestions for language rehabilitation of language disorder patients.