A Preliminary Study of the Effects of Word Frequency and Position On the Lexical Competition Process During the Reading of Chinese Text

• Main Authors: Jo-Chi Cheng, 鄭若騏
• Other Authors: Chih-Hao Tsai
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/88607906373801434102

碩士 === 高雄醫學大學 === 心理學研究所碩士班 === 96 === In written Chinese, characters are spaced evenly. There are no physical word boundaries. During reading, readers must be able to identify words in a visual environment full of word identification ambiguities. How do Chinese readers accomplish such an apparently complex task so efficiently and effectively? This study assumed that when a reader fixates on the text, the characters within the perceptual span activate words containing them in the mental lexicon. The automatic lexical competition of activated words helps resolve the word identification ambiguities, much like the process of identifying words in speech. In this study, the effects of word frequency and position on the lexical competition process were examined. It was hypothesized that words with higher frequencies and those at the front parts of the ambiguous strings dominate the competition. Experiment 1 tried to find out whether obvious word boundaries in Chinese text increase reading speed or not. We manipulated different written units in Chinese text, then we measured subject’s reading speed. Experimental results indicated that the text with obvious word boundaries significantly decreased the reading speed. It appeared even word boundaries are unobvious in Chinese text, Chinese readers can still identify words from text by using the automatic word identification process. Experiment 2 manipulated word frequency and target’s position of ambiguous three-character strings to investigate the effect of word frequency and position on the lexical competition process. Subjects were asked to make a lexical decision on the first two or last two characters of ambiguous three-character strings, than we measured their reaction time. The results showed that the reaction time of words with higher frequencies and those consisting of the last two characters of the ambiguous string were faster. The results also indicated that the competitive domination of words at the back parts of ambiguous strings was greater than words with higher frequencies. In experiment 3, we used priming paradigm to investigate the effect of word frequency and position on the lexical competition process. The results showed that neither word frequency nor word position affected priming effects. This presumably is because the priming group and non-priming group didn''t have a good enough word frequency matching, so the experimental sensitivity was affected. Experiment 4 modified the above problems, and the results showed the same results with experiment 2, specifically that the competitive domination of words at the back parts of ambiguous strings was greater than words with higher frequencies. In conclusion, the automatic lexical competition of activated words makes words with higher frequencies and those at the back parts of ambiguous strings dominate the competition, helping to resolve the word identification ambiguities.