Effects Of Lexical Variables And Individual Differences On Chinese Character Amnesia

Riding the waves of Internet technology and online communication,the handwriting ability of this generation has been under threat.The retrieval difficulties in handwriting termed as “Character Amnesia” had fueled the discussion around the world.However,academic research on written production in non-alphabetic scripts,especially Chinese,has been far from sufficient.There could be limitations in the task selection and experiment design.The effects of phonological codes(e.g.,regularity)as well as its interactions between frequency are still controversial.Individual difference including pen exposure and digital use effects across different groups requires further investigation.In order to take a more in-depth view into the underlying causes of “Character Amnesia”,this study focused on the above four factors.We collected 60 Chinese characters and categorized them into four groups according to their frequency and regularity.A total of 48 participants from high schools and universities took part in the writing-to-dictation task.They reported to vary in daily pen exposure and digital use individually.The amnesia rates were further analyzed using General Linear Model(GLM)program in the software R.The results revealed the significant effects of frequency,pen exposure and digital use on Chinese character amnesia.It was found that regularity showed no significant contribution to handwriting accuracy but interacted with frequency.Compared with university students,high school students presented a better handwriting performance in general.In addition,university students tended to be more sensitive to regularity of characters and pen exposure.These findings suggested that regularity effects on Chinese handwriting seemed to be marginal and subject to frequency and individual factors.More handwriting practice(more than 2 hours per day)and limited electronic use(less than 2 hours per day)could significantly contribute to the relief from an amnesia state.Our research attempted to fill the gaps in terms of material and participants selection as well as data analysis,so as to deepen the research scopes and provide practical implications for different groups of students.