positional specificity of radicals in chinese character ...positional speciﬁcity of radicals in...

Journal of Memory and Language40, 498–519 (1999)Article ID jmla.1998.2625, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on

Positional Specificity of Radicals in Chinese Character Recognition

Marcus Taft and Xiaoping Zhu

University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

and

Danling Peng

Beijing Normal University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

The first two experiments reported here took two-radical Chinese characters and transposed theirradicals to create another character. Character decision and naming responses to these transposedstimuli were then compared to control items that were not created via transposition, and no differencewas found. Nor was a transposition effect found in a third experiment examining noncharacters.These results were taken to mean that positional information is crucial in activating radical infor-mation during character recognition. A further experiment did reveal a radical-transposition effect,but only when a four-radical character had two of its radicals transposed (and hence had two of itsradicals intact). In contrast to the first three experiments with two-radical characters, the transpositionof characters within two-character words revealed considerable interference, which confirmed theexpectation that positional information is not so important in character-level representations. Theresults overall support a hierarchical framework for considering the recognition of Chinese wordswhereby there is both a radical and a character level of representation, with the former being directlyactivated by featural information, including positional features.© 1999 Academic Press

Key Words:Chinese character recognition; Chinese word recognition; letter transposition; radicalprocessing; sublexical processing.

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Chinese characters have internal structNot only are characters composed of a serieindividual strokes, but those strokes often cobine to form recurring subcharacter “radicaThus, the “complex” character is horizon-tally structured with the left radical and theright radical , while the “complex” characte

is vertically structured with the top radicand the bottom radical . Many of these

radicals can actually be “simple” characterstheir own right, like (self) and (strength).In addition, many radicals can appear in a nber of different positions within a character;

The research reported in this paper was supportedgrant to the first author from the Australian Research Ccil and to the third author from the National Natural Sences Foundation of the People’s Republic of China.technical help of Mr Ding Guosheng is gratefully acknoedged.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to MTaft of the School of Psychology, University of NSSydney, NSW 2052, Australia. E-mail: M.Taft@uns
edu.au.
4980749-596X/99 $30.00Copyright © 1999 by Academic PressAll rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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example, the radical can occur on the le(e.g., ), on the right (e.g., ), at the top (e.g

), at the bottom (e.g., ) or in a range odifferent positions in more complex charact(e.g., , , , ). In horizontally structured characters (like ), the left-hand radicaoften provides some clue to the meaning ofcharacter ( refers to speechand meansrecord in writing) while the right-hand radicoften gives some indication of pronunciat( is pronounced jı`, and is pronounced jı`).

he relationship between position and funcs less systematic in vertically structured chcters (like ).There is increasing evidence from a rang

paradigms to suggest that reading a comcharacter involves the processing of its comnent radicals (e.g., Fang, Horng, & Tze1986; Fang & Wu, 1989; Feldman & Sio1997; Flores D’Arcais, Saito, & Kawakam1995; Han, 1994; Hue, 1992; Lai & Huan

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499RADICAL POSITION

Kawakami, Masuda, & Flores D’Arcais, 199Seidenberg, 1985; Taft & Zhu, 1997a; Zh1999). Taft and Zhu (1997a) provide a theoical framework within which to conceptualithis whereby lexical memory is viewed ashierarchy of levels. Each level represents a

FIG. 1. A multilevel activation framework for cThe example of (xian dai), meaning ”modern“units.

ticular size of unit, and activation spreads

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through the hierarchy from lower to higher leels.

As is depicted in Fig.1, the lexical processsystem includes orthographic, phonologiand semantic subsystems. When a word issually presented, the system is entered thro

ceptualizing the lexical processing of Chinese wordsused to illustrate the different levels of representationa

onis

the orthographic subsystem on the basis of the

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500 TAFT, ZHU, AND PENG

lowest level features (i.e., strokes and strcombinations and relationships). Activatthen passes up to the radical units assocwith the activated features and in turn passeto the character units associated with the avated radical units and then to the multichater units associated with the activated charaunits. Though not of direct concern here, avation can pass to the relevant phonologunits linked at the character level as well athe multicharacter level (see Taft & Zhu, 191997b), as it also can to the relevant semaunits. It is conceivable that radical unitsassociated directly with semantic and phonoical units as well, though we do not addresspossibility here and do not depict it in Fig.1

The focus of the current research is onnature of the radical-level representations inorthographic subsystem. Taft and Zhu (199have pointed to the involvement of radicalslexical processing by demonstrating thatfrequency of occurrence of a radical hasimpact on character decision responses wcharacter frequency is controlled. On findthe clearest effect to be on right-hand radi(but see Feldman & Siok, 1997), Taft and Zexamined whether the frequency measurewas relevant was one that took radical posiinto account. For example, the charac

and are of approximately equal fruency in the language, and their right-hadicals ( and , respectively) occur aadicals equally frequently if position is ignori.e., “total radical frequency”). However, tormer radical is more common than the lan the right-hand side in particular; that

rarely occurs in the right-hand positiwhile commonly does. Taft and Zhu fouhat characters like took less time to classias a real character than characters like sug-gesting that the radical frequency that inences recognition times is not total radicalquency, but rather, a position-sensitive meas

Reinforcing this conclusion was the fact ttotal radical frequency did not affect characdecision times when positional frequency wcontrolled. For example, and are characters of approximately equal frequency, and
radical occurs on the right-hand side as often
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as does the radical, but more often in othepositions than does. Thus the total radicafrequency of is greater than that of. Itemslike and did not differ in their responstimes (and in fact, if anything, showed a reveradical frequency effect), suggesting that this no representation for radical units indepdent of their position in the character.

To explain these data, Taft and Zhu (199proposed that there are different representafor the radical in its different positions, eachwhich is sensitive to the frequency with whichis encountered. Such position-specific unitsactivated via the feature units associatedthat radical, along with feature units represeing its position (e.g., “top,” “left,” etc). Thimeans that the unit representing the left-hradical of, for example, would be partiallyactivated when is presented because thcharacters share a radical though the amousuch partial activation will depend on tweight given to the positional features relatto the others.

In fact, it is not strictly speaking correctsay that radicals in different positions sharephysical features, because radicals tend to dsomewhat in shape or size depending onposition. For example, the bottom horizonline of a radical becomes oblique when apping on the left side (e.g., compare the left-hand right-hand versions of the radical in )and radicals are lengthened vertically whensitioned on the left or right, while lengthenhorizontally when positioned at the top or btom (e.g., compare the radicalin and ).It might be suggested, then, that positionalformation about radicals can be entirely ctured within the system by having different reresentations for the differently shaped versof the same radical. So, for example, thmight be four separate representations foratthe radical level: (a) with an oblique bottostroke for use on the left-hand side, as in, (b)vertically elongated for use on the right sidein , (c) horizontally elongated for use in vetically structured characters, as in and ,and (d) unaltered elsewhere, as inand .

However, the shape of the radical is not
tually a reliable guide to position because it can

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501RADICAL POSITION

be quite variable depending on the font usewhen it is handwritten. In fact, if the characwere to be handwritten without any elongatof the radical at all, it would often still be aacceptable rendering of that character. Furtmore, elongation does not discriminate betwthe top and bottom positions (e.g., the top rical of and bottom radical of have thesame shape). Finally, differently shaped vsions of the same radical can be found insame position: Compare the bottom radica

with that in and the top left radical iwith that in . For these reasons, the idea

building positional information into the systesolely on the basis of shape does not aptenable. Some other coding scheme wotherefore seem to be required.

Perhaps parallels can be drawn with the sgestions that have been made for the repretation of letter position in linear alphabescripts. In the hierarchical neural netwomodel of Mozer (1987), there are input unthat are sensitive to different features at eaca large number of positions within a simularetina. These units are connected to other uthat represent individual letters, each of whcan be defined in terms of a 33 3 array ofeatures, and these units are, in turn, conneto a layer of units representing letter-clustWord boundaries can be a part of a letter-cter, as indicated by a lack of activation in afeature units in that retinotopic position. Thpresentation of the letter-string LARGE wactivate letter-cluster units for #LA, LAR, GEetc, where # refers to a word boundary, andthe combination of these units that activatesappropriate word level unit. Although the lettcluster unit LAR will also be activated whSOLAR is presented, the fact that LAR occat the beginning rather than the end of LARis captured by the activation of the #LA u(and the nonactivation of the AR# unit).

In a related approach, Peressotti and Grai(1995) propose an input layer that is sensitivletter position that sends its activation to anolayer of units that is position insensitive. Thatthere is a unit representing #F and anotherresenting F#, but both send activation to a g
eral F unit.
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It would seem to be relatively easy to adeither of these approaches to the Chineseation. Radicals simply replace letters as acttion units. However, the existence of an inmediate letter-cluster layer of units makes lisense in Chinese, since a “radical-cluswould be equivalent to the whole characteris to be recognized.

It is not critical exactly how radical positiois built into the recognition system. The poinbe focused on here is rather whether the unidistribution of units) that is activated in rsponse to the presence of a particular radtakes into account the position of that radwithin the character in which it occurs. Sinthe radical is the lowest-level structure thaassociable with a set of features, one woexpect that its representation as an inputshould indeed be position sensitive.

Experiments examining illusory conjunctioreinforce this expectation. A number of stud(see Li & Chen, 1997, for a summary) haobserved that when two characters are rappresented side by side, it is possible forreader to experience the illusion that a differcharacter was presented, namely, a charthat combines one radical from each of thecharacters. For example, brief presentatio

and leads to the illusion that was presented (taking the left radical from the ficharacter and the right radical from the secoIn fact, is more likely to be falsely reconized than is even though both are creafrom a radical taken from each of the two psented characters (Li & Chen, 1997). That isillusion is less likely to occur when the radicmust move to a different position, as happwith the radical , which is on the right in buton the left in . Thus, it seems that positioninformation is an important feature associawith a radical.

However, following the suggestion of Persotti and Grainger (1995), there may also bposition-insensitive representation of the radprior to reaching the character level; that is,that is activated regardless of whether it occon the right, left, top, bottom, etc. of the chacter in which it occurs. In fact, such a rep
sentation would seem to be redundant because

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there is no obvious advantage to the systeactivate a position-insensitive radical represtation. It makes more sense if the characlevel unit is activated directly from the positiosensitive units. For example, could beactivated via a unit representing a left-ha

(and a right-hand ), and could be activated via a unit representing a right-ha

(and a left-hand ) without any need, ieither case, to activate an intervening unit rresenting a position-free .

Nevertheless, there is a way of testwhether character recognition passes throuposition-free representation of the componradicals. There exist Chinese characters thacomposed of exactly the same radicals asother, but in different positions. For examp

(dull) and (apricot) are both composedand , while (cultivate) and (bound-

ary) are both composed of and . If activa-tion of a character representation doesthrough some position-free radical-level repsentation, then it would be the case that bmembers of such pairs would be activawhenever one of them is presented for recotion and this could well lead to interferenThat is, if both and are activated via position-free representations of and , then itwill be easy to confuse with since theywould follow considerably overlapping activtion pathways.

On the other hand, if character represetions are directly activated by position-sensiradical representations, there may be miniinterference. That is, will be activated by“top” and a “bottom” , while will beactivated by a “top” and a “bottom” andwill therefore follow quite distinct activatiopathways. The amount of interference arisfrom transposability of radicals would then dpend on the amount of weight placed on ptional features relative to the physical featuof the radicals.

Transposability effects have indeed bobserved in experiments using English mrials. Chambers (1979), O’Connor and For(1981), Andrews (1996), and Taft and vGraan (1998) have all observed that respo
to words with two letters transposed take
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longer and/or are more error-prone thanpropriate control items. For example, Adrews (1996) looked at lexical decision anaming responses to words like CALM thcreate a different word when two medial lters are transposed (i.e., CLAM) and fouinflated RTs relative to control wordmatched on word frequency (like CLUE) thdo not create a word when two letterstransposed (i.e., CULE is not a word). Fhigh frequency words (e.g., CALM versCLUE) this transposability effect was abo30 ms for both lexical decision and namiwhile for low frequency words (e.g., CLAMversus CLIP) the effect was observed onlyerror rates in naming (with a difference10% in error rates between the transposand control items). Both Chambers (19and O’Connor and Forster (1981) alsoported large effects of transposability on nwords created by transposing two letters oreal word, particularly when that letter tranposition occurred in the middle of the wo(e.g., SHROT created from SHORT). Forample, Chambers (1979) observed a dela94 ms on lexical decision responses to itelike SHROT relative to control nonword(like PHROE) with a 12% difference in errrates. From these demonstrations of difficuin processing letter-transposed items, the cclusion can be reached that letter procesis not always sensitive to positional informtion. Having the right letters in the wronorder is enough to activate the base worddegree that will produce interference.

The first experiment to be reported hereamines the issue of radical position sensitiin Chinese by comparing character decisionsponses to transposable characters (like)with those to nontransposable control charac(like ). The character decision task is equalent to lexical decision, but with the requiment that single characters be discriminafrom nonexistent characters. If the nonchaters are legally composed of real radicals,only way to perform this task is to gain accto the character-level of representation in oto ascertain whether the particular combina
of radicals does exist.

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503RADICAL POSITION

EXPERIMENT 1: CHARACTER DECISIONRESPONSES TO TRANSPOSABLE

CHARACTERS

Method

Materials

Twenty-two pairs of characters whose tradicals1 could be transposed to create a dif

nt character were selected, with one combion being of higher frequency than the ote.g., is more common than ). Both radica

combinations were used as items, though eversion was presented to a different groupparticipants. In this way, each participantceived 11 relatively high frequency transpable characters (High Frequency Transposcharacters) and 11 relatively low frequentransposable characters (Low Frequency Trposable characters). They also received 11transposable characters (High Frequency Ctrol characters) matched in pairs with the HFrequency Transposable items on charactequency (Modern Chinese frequency dictiona1985) and matched over all High FrequeTransposable items on stroke number, as wereceiving 11 nontransposable characters (Frequency Control characters) similamatched with the Low Frequency Transposaitems. So, for example, one group of partpants saw the High Frequency Transposable,its matched High Frequency Control , theLow Frequency Transposable , and itsmatched Low Frequency Control , while theother group saw the High Frequency Transpable , its matched High Frequency Control,he Low Frequency Transposable, and itsmatched Low Frequency Control .

The 22 characters on each list (see Tablwere randomly interspersed with noncharacThese were items composed of two real radithat were placed in such a way that a noneent character was created. Half of the noncacters were composed of radicals that cocreate a real character when transposed and

1 The radicals that were transposable were someompound radicals, that is, units composed of two or mimple radicals. For example, the left part of (and the

right part of ) is actually composed of and .

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were not. There was little control over tmatching of transposable and nontransposnoncharacters in this experiment becausefocus was on the real characters. Thereforeresponses to the noncharacters were not eined in Experiment 1. However, later expements to be reported will focus explicitly on tnoncharacters.

There were also 12 practice items at theginning of the experiment, half of which wetransposable and equally distributed betwcharacters and noncharacters.

Participants

There were two groups of 15 participants.were native Mandarin Chinese speakers fthe People’s Republic of China who were sdents at the University of New South WalThey were financially reimbursed for their pticipation.

Procedure

Items were printed in Song font and psented on a computer screen for 500 msdifferent random order for each participawith an intertrial interval of 500 ms from thtime of response. Noncharacter items werestructed by combining parts of real charactogether, thus generating images that couldbe distinguished from the real charactersphysical grounds alone. Participants were as(in Mandarin) to respond by button-prewhether the item was a real Chinese charactnot and to do this as quickly but as accuratelpossible.

Results and Discussion

Table 2 presents the mean character dectimes and error rates for the characters useExperiment 1. While there was significant effof character frequency,F1(1,28) 5 25.34,p ,.001;F2(1,42)5 14.26,p , .001 for RTs, anF1(1,28) 5 10.70, p , .01; F2(1,42) 5 6.32,p , .02 for errors, it can be seen that therevery little effect of transposability. In fact, thewas not even a hint of a significant effecttransposability for either high or low frequencharacters on either reaction time or error ra

se

all F’s , 1, and it is therefore apparent that


TABLE 1

Characters Used in the Character Decision Task of Experiment 1and the Naming Task of Experiment 2

TABLE 2

Mean Character Decision Times (ms) and Percentage Error Rates (in Parentheses)for the Characters of Experiment 1

itiz-enthate

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505RADICAL POSITION

positional information is important whencomes to using radical information in recogning a character. When a radical is in a differposition in two different characters it seemsthe radical-level representation that is activain each case is easily distinguished, leadinminimal interference.

It could be argued, however, that if, for eample, were mistaken for a positive character decision response would nonethelesmade relatively quickly, but it would be bason the wrong character. The character decitask could not pick up such a mistake sincwould register appropriately as a “yes”sponse. Andrews (1996) raised this possibin her English study with words that create otwords when two letters are transposed (eCALM versus CLUE, CLAM versus CLIPHowever, the argument holds only for low fquency words because if a high frequency i(e.g., CALM, ) is mistakenly responded toits low frequency transposition (CLAM, ),esponse times will be slower than to the hrequency control word (e.g., CLUE, ).Therefore, it would be hard to explain the laof a transposability effect for high frequencharacters in these terms.

Nevertheless, it might be argued that a HFrequency Transposable character will sulittle competition from the activation of ilower frequency transposition because its hfrequency gives it an activation level that doinates any competitors. Although Andre(1996) did find interference for high frequenwords, this possibility must be consideredwould therefore be preferable to seek a traposability effect with low frequency items usia task where a response made to the wcharacter will be registered as such. A namtask offers these conditions; that is, if characneed to be overtly pronounced, it can be swhether there are confusions between Lowquency Transposable items and their higherquency transpositions. Indeed, Andrews (19found a large number of transpositional errwhen her low frequency English words wpronounced aloud (e.g., CLAM read
CALM). f
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EXPERIMENT 2: NAMING RESPONSESTO TRANSPOSABLE CHARACTERS

Method

Materials

The characters were exactly the same as tused in Experiment 1 (Table 1). Only the ncharacters were deleted from the experimInitial consonants were not explicitly matchbetween the transposable and nontranspoitems, but allowed to vary randomly betwethem.

Participants

Another 32 participants were selected frthe same pool as Experiment 1 and dividedtwo groups of 16.

Procedure

The characters were presented in the sway as in Experiment 1, but this time partipants were asked to read each character ainto a microphone as soon as they recognizeThe experimenter listened to the responthrough a set of headphones and recordederrors in pronunciation (including stutters aincomplete responses) as they were produThese errors were eliminated from the reactime analysis.


Naming times and error rates are givenTable 3. Analysis revealed that only the fquency effect was significant,F1(1,30)5 25.72p , .001;F2(1,42)5 18.13,p , .001 for RTsand F1(1,30) 5 31.78, p , .001; F2(1,42) 5

4.44,p , .001 for errors. There was againign of a significant transposability effect, wll F’s , 1, and this reinforces the conclusionxperiment 1 that radical position is a maonstraint on the activation of character-leepresentations. That is, is not confused wit

even though they are composed of the sradicals and even though the former isfrequent than the latter.2

2 Although initial consonant was a random factorween the two conditions, it turned out that there wer
act more transposable items than control items beginning

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It needs to be said, however, that anddo not constitute a typical example of

ransposable pair of characters. In fact, theajority of transposable two-radical charac

nvolve an alternation between vertical and hzontal structure rather than a symmetrransposition around a horizontal or vertixis. Thus, the pair and is far more typica

of transposable characters than isand .Perhaps no effect of transposability wasserved in Experiments 1 and 2 because trposability does not extend across different cacter structures. While it is not obvious wtheoretical account of position sensitivity coincorporate such a notion, it is important toto overcome this concern. Experiment 3 dthis.

EXPERIMENT 3: CHARACTER DECISIONRESPONSES TO TRANSPOSABLE

NONCHARACTERS

While the transposability of two-radical chacters primarily creates new charactershave a different symmetrical structure, thereno such constraints when creating noncha

with a stop consonant and vice versa for fricatives. Ifconsonants were to trigger the voice key more quicklyfricatives, it may be possible to explain the lack of traposability effect in these terms. However, against thisexamination of the item means showed that items beginwith stop consonants were, if anything, slower than th

TAB

Mean Naming Times (ms) andfor the Charac

beginning with fricatives.

sts-ll

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ters that are transpositions of real characFor example, the noncharacter can be created from the real character , and the noncharacter can be created from the real chacter .

In the following experiment, the focus issuch noncharacters where any effect of trposability should be very clear. If radical-levrepresentations are not position specific, t

will activate a single character-level repsentation ( ) via the units for and and,therefore, the only way to correctly classifyitem as a nonexistent character is to determthat it is not actually . This might be achievevia a checking back mechanism that compthe activated character with the actual stimuitem (or iconic trace of that item). On the othhand, if radical representations embody ptional information, then activation of the “lehand” unit and “right-hand” unit will havelittle impact on the “right-hand” unit and“left-hand” unit and, therefore, the charactlevel unit for will not be activated by thpresentation of the noncharacter, so that nointerference will ensue.

Method

Materials

Only horizontally structured noncharactwere used (Table 4). One set of these (HFrequency Transposable noncharacters)

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3

centage Error Rates (in Parentheses)of Experiment 2

LE

Perters

created by symmetrically transposing the two

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507RADICAL POSITION

halves of 30 high frequency characters (grethan 146 per million according to theModernChinese frequency dictionary,1985) and another set (Low Frequency Transposable ncharacters) by doing the same to 30 lowquency characters (less than 4.4 per milliNontransposable control items (High FrequeControl and Low Frequency Control nonch

TAB

The Noncharacters Used in the

acters) were created in such a way that, acro

r

--.y

all items in the condition, the same radicwere used in the same position as those otransposable items. This was achieved by ping items within each of the High FrequenTransposable and Low Frequency Transposconditions and rotating the radicals betwpairs. So, for example, the nontransposablecharacters and were created from the ra

4

racter Decision Task of Experiment 3

LE

Cha

ssicals used in the transposable noncharacters

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and . The items were then split into twlists so that no participant saw the transposand nontransposable items that were crefrom the same radicals.

The radicals that were used for the noncacters were selected to be cases that werein the position that they appeared in andchanged little in shape when appearing inleft or right position. The actual stimulus marials were constructed from the radicals spliout of two real characters that contained eacthe two radicals in the same position as innoncharacter. That is, the transposable noncacters were not constructed merely by transing the two radicals of the character on whthey were based, because the right-hand raof a horizontally structured character is usularger than its left-hand radical and we wishto maintain this typical proportion.

Interspersed with the randomly presennoncharacters were 60 real characters thatnecessary as distracters for the charactersion task. Half of these were transposablehalf were nontransposable. Unlike the noncacters, the real characters were rarely transable around the same axis (horizontal or vecal) because of the aforementioned lack of scharacters in Chinese. The focus of this ex

TAB

Mean Character Decision Times (msfor the Nonchara

iment was on the noncharacters and, for thi

led

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f

r-s-

al

rei-d-s--hr-

reason, little care was taken in matching thetypes of real character (unlike what was donExperiments 1 and 2, where the focus wascifically on the real characters).

Participants

There were two groups of 15 participataken from the same pool as for the otherperiments.

Procedure

The character decision task followedsame procedure as that used in Experimen


Table 5 presents the character decision tiand error rates for the noncharacters of Eximent 3, where it is seen that there is no siginterference arising from the transposabilityradicals to create a real character. Again, allF’swere less than 1.

It certainly appears to be the case that Cnese readers can readily distinguish two cacters whose only difference is the relativesition of their component radicals. Even whthe presented character is an artificial one, tappears to be no need to suppress activatio

5

nd Percentage Error Rates (in Parentheses)rs of Experiment 3

LE

) acte

sa character-level unit. All of this implies that a

enesecteia

ad-

ac-t aseauvendthefno

lefti-t aiatcanav-

s is ot icaP d iE eri teri t it.

ntsi eac rtica thn sea veb tha , oc bet bu uca tri-m f ac mul enh hisp

ofr iont ingc

e be-c uche arei Lia ess,s sed,a ltso

ntsthatersn-

rfer-ses

therr-er,eseosednlyt is,t ofS,ns

tiva-n

ntsedcalsalsre-erateon-twoof atinedbet noeateareems.g.,

e

509RADICAL POSITION

left-hand radical is represented quite indepdently of a right-hand radical and that threpresentations directly activate the charaunits associated with them without any medtion through a position-free version of the rical.

From the theoretical account given, it istually somewhat surprising that there is noleast a weak interference effect for transpocharacters and noncharacters. This is becthe features that are fed into the radical-leunits would be virtually the same for a left-haradical and a right-hand radical, aside frompositional features. After all, is composed oa similar combination of lines and anglesmatter what position it appears in (cf. theand right positions of ). Clearly, the postional features are given considerable weighthis stage of activation such that the approprposition-specific radical representationreadily dominate the others, but one might hexpectedsomeactivation in the differently poitioned radical representations on the bashe physical features of the presented raderhaps the very small differences observexperiments 1 and 2 reflect this. However, th

s actually a reverse effect for the noncharacn Experiment 3, which would argue agains

It is possible, though, that some participan Experiment 3 used the fact that very few rharacters are transposable around the vexis to help them make their responses tooncharacters, which were always transporound their vertical axis. That is, it may haeen possible to adopt a strategy wherebyctivation of a character representation thathecking back to the stimulus, was found toransposed around the vertical axis couldsed to classify the item as a noncharacter. Sstrategy could potentially eliminate any deental effects arising from the activation o

haracter-level representation when the stius is a noncharacter. The next experimowever, will provide data that counter tossibility.The consistent failure to find an effect

adical transposition might arouse suspichat radicals are not involved in process
haracters at all. The reason that we do no
-

r-

tdsel

te

e

fl.nes

laled

en

eh

-t,

ntertain this interpretation of the results isause, as mentioned earlier, there is so mvidence from other paradigms that radicals

ndeed involved in character recognition (seend Chen, 1997, for a summary). Nonetheluch an interpretation needs to be addresnd we will do so again in the light of the resuf the next experiment.

EXPERIMENT 4: CHARACTER DECISIONRESPONSES TO MULTIRADICAL

TRANSPOSABLE NONWORDS

The results of the first three experimemight seem to be contradictory to resultshave been obtained in English. Chamb(1979), O’Connor and Forster (1981), and Adrews (1996) have demonstrated clear inteence in lexical decision and naming responto words and nonwords that are related to owords via letter transposition (e.g., CLAM vesus CLIP, SHROT versus PHROE). Howevthere is an important difference between thstudies and the present one. The transpitems used in the English experiments had oa subset of the letter-string transposed. Thaeven though the O and R of SHORT are ouposition in the nonword SHROT, the lettersH, and T are all in their appropriate positioand therefore can provide considerable action to the word-level unit for SHORT wheSHROT is presented.

If this is so, we might see the equivaleresult in Chinese. That is, if the transporadicals constitute only a subset of the radiof the stimulus item, then the intact radicmight provide enough activation to the repsentation of the real base character to geninterference. Of course, for the stimulus to ctain at least one intact radical as well astransposed radicals, it must be composedleast three radicals. Such stimuli were examin Experiment 4. Only noncharacters couldused, however, because there are almoscases of real multiradical characters that cra different character when two of its radicalstransposed. Two sets of noncharacter itwere set up: Those with three radicals (e

derived from the character ) and thos
twith four or more (e.g., derived from ).

twtwonto

ene.grly

notwoalns

nsth

foule,

n o

thad

rad

t )

istomes

tionch

ntser

d i

isions ofcalility

sisw

nns-ac-

ntsfect: Iteirsed

theo be. Soatedmefer-is

ve. Itsherrep-be-ed

ur-thethetheisor-arethethatter

heno


These were compared to cases where thetransposed radicals were replaced withother radicals that did not convert the item ia real character when transposed.

Method

Materials

Thirty-two noncharacters (Table 6) were gerated by taking a three-radical character (

and ) and transposing the two similasized radicals (giving and ). Control itemswere then generated from these transposedcharacters by exchanging the right part ofof the items. Thus, and do not create a recharacter when two of their radicals are traposed.

A further 28 transposable and 28 nontraposable noncharacters were generated insame way, but using base characters withor more radicals (mostly four). For examp

is a transposed version of , and is atransposed version of ; while and donot create a character through transpositioradicals and therefore serve as controls.

Two lists of items were then generated sono participant saw a transposable item annontransposable item with the same basecals. That is, one list contained and (trans-posable) as well as and (control), whilehe other list contained and (transposableas well as and (control).

In addition to the 60 noncharacters in a lthere were 60 real characters that were cposed of three or more radicals. None of thcreated a different word through transposiof two radicals (because of the lack of sucharacters in Chinese).

Participants

There were two groups of 15 participataken from the same pool as the other expments.

Procedure

The task was character decision as outline
Experiments 1 and 3.
o

-.,

n-

-

-er

f

tai-

,-e

i-

n


Table 7 presents the mean character dectimes and error rates for the noncharacterExperiment 4. Turning first to the three-radicases, there was no significant transposabeffect on RTs,F1(1,28)5 0.27,p . .1; F2(1,30)5 0.28,p . .1, though the participants analy

as significant on errors,F1(1,28)5 6.35,p ,.02; F2(1,30) 5 2.27, p . .1. However, whewe look at the four-radicals items, a clear traposability effect finally emerges both on retion times,F1(1,28) 5 7.24,p , .02; F2(1,30)5 4.35, p , .05, and error rates,F1(1,28) 512.55,p , .01; F2(1,30)5 4.42,p , .05.

It seems that at least half of the componeof a stimulus need to be intact before an efof component transposability reliably occursis only when two of the four radicals are in thappropriate positions that the two transporadicals provide a sufficient contribution toactivation process for the base character tactivated and hence produce interferencethis suggests that a radical-level unit associwith a particular position does receive soactivation when that radical appears in a difent position within the stimulus, but that thactivation is minimal and normally fails to haan impact on the processing of the stimulusimpact is manifested only when there is otevidence for the competing character-levelresentation, namely, when that character ising partly activated by appropriately positionradicals in the stimulus.

Note that it is not the case that the foradical transposable items are slower thanthree-radical transposable items, rather it isfour-radical control items that are faster thanthree radical control items. What this impliessimply that four-radical noncharacters are nmally less similar to a real character thanthree-radical noncharacters. For most ofthree-radical items, there is a real characteris only one radical different to the noncharac(e.g., shares two of its three radicals with,and shares two of its three radicals with,

, and ), whereas this is rarely true for tfour-radical noncharacters (e.g., there is
character that is one radical different fromor

rdl oft rev thc

ameac-

at

511RADICAL POSITION

). So despite this fact about the non-woikeness of four-radical noncharacters, if twohe radicals create a real character whenersed, it seems that the representation for

TAB

The Noncharacters Used in the

haracter gets activated sufficiently to interfere

-

-at

with the character decision response. The sis not true for two or three-radical noncharters.

Finally, we can dismiss the possibility th

6

racter Decision Task of Experiment 4

LE

Cha

the lack of a transposability effect in Experi-

e tifyth

disamcte

terternstescaneac-ndpri

naltiont atlye iprinoo

icareethein

thiste

osim

e-rast

itsul-

ers.icale is

icalsbe-har-are

res

ndallyter

tothee

a nc nci-a

ott in

-t icalp see


ment 3 arose from the participants being ablmake use of transposability to quickly identan item as a noncharacter. In Experiment 4,noncharacters could again be potentiallycriminated from the real characters on the sbasis because no transposable real charawere present. However, the finding of an inference effect for the four-radical noncharacdemonstrates that participants were not setive to this fact. This finding also demonstrathat the previously observed lack of raditransposition effects cannot be simply explaiin terms of radicals not participating in charter recognition. That is, it is possible to firadical transposition effects under the approate conditions.

We wish to conclude, then, that positiofeatures are highly constraining in the activaof radical-level units, to such an extent thacharacter representation will not be sufficienactivated unless at least half of its radicals artheir correct position, hence activating approate radical-level units. The claim is thatinterference is observed when the majorityradicals are transposed (i.e., the two-raditems of Experiments 1, 2, and 3 and the thradical items of Experiment 4) because ofoverriding importance of positional featuresactivating radical representations. Whatmeans, then, is that one should observe inference in an equivalent situation where ptional features are not important. This is exa

TAB

Mean Character Decision Times (msfor the Nonchara

ined in the final experiment. T

o

e-ers

-si-

ld

-

n-

fl-

r---

EXPERIMENT 5: LEXICAL DECISIONRESPONSES TO TRANSPOSABLE

WORDS AND NONWORDS

Within a hierarchical framework like that dpicted in Fig. 1, there is an interesting contbetween the activation of a character viacomponent radicals and the activation of a mticharacter word via its component charactWhile it makes sense to suggest that radrepresentations are position specific, the samnot true of character representations. Radare directly associated with feature unitscause they are the lowest-level structure. Cacters are not. This means that radical unitspotentially sensitive to positional featuwhereas character units are not.

Furthermore, while the pronunciation ameaning of a character is not systematicaffected by its position within a multicharacword, the function of a radical can be relatedits position within a character. For example,character is pronounced koˇu and conveys thmeaning ofmouthin both (oral medicine)

nd (gargle), while as a radical, it caontribute to the meaning but not the pronution when used on the left as in (eat, pro-

nounced chı#) and to the pronunciation but nhe meaning when used on the right as

(kou, meaningbutton). If this position/funcion relationship is to have an impact on radrocessing (e.g., Feldman & Siok, 1997, but

7

nd Percentage Error Rates (in Parentheses)rs of Experiment 4

LE

) acte

aft & Zhu, 1997), then radical position must be

s n

en-osle,

terf

asieirer), it

freq romt

mdeenithonckbilos

abn ants97)thethaex

-t-t

s res err

nop s oa terw

bevebee

a.g.,

rom

fer-

o

a-osed

rencyyncys-re-s-e).th aord

aentkenry

ns-s-ethererd

ntons-An-dedlyms.

ntssed

513RADICAL POSITION

represented in some way, whereas there ineed for position-sensitive character units.

Now, if character units are not position-ssitive, we would expect an effect of transpability for two-character words. For examp

(dai lıng, to guide) and (lıng dai,necktie) are composed of the same characbut in reverse position. The same is true o

(qı shuı, soda) and (shuıqı, vapor). Ifone cannot differentiate two words on the bof position-specific representations for thsubunits, then their word-level (multicharactunits will be activated in competition. That isis likely to be much harder to recognize

than a nontransposable word of equaluency because the competition arising f

he activation of will be great.The aim of Experiment 5, then, was to exa

ine whether there is an interference effect uncircumstances where it is unlikely that represtational units are position-specific, namely, wtransposable multicharacter words and nwords. If there is, it would suggest that the laof an interference effect for radical transposaity arises because radical units are indeed ption-specific.

There is reason to suppose that transposmulticharacter words will show interference ilexical decision task. A series of experimereported by Peng, Ding, Taft and Zhu (19revealed an effect of semantic priming whenprime was the transposed version of a wordwas semantically related to the target. Forample, while the prior presentation of

(necktie) facilitated lexical decision responses to the semantically related targe

(Western-style clothes), so did the prior presentation of (to guide), though only ahorter SOA’s. Such a result implies that pentation of activates the multicharactepresentation of as well as that of

which means that character position doeslay a major role in at least the early stagectivating information at the multicharacord level.One would therefore expect that there will

a delay in deciding that the correct word-lerepresentation for a transposable word has
accessed. That is, lexical decision responses to
o

-

s,

s

-

-r-

-

-i-

le

t-

-

tf

ln

word like should be delayed relative tonontransposable word of equal frequency (e

) because of the confusion that arises fthe activation of the other word (i.e., ).There should also be clear effects of interence on transposable nonword stimuli, like

(where meansa scene), compared tnontransposable nonwords, like .

Method

Materials

Thirty-two pairs of two-character words (Tble 8) where the characters could be transpto create another word (e.g., and ,

and ) were used. Two lists wethen generated; one list with 16 high frequeversions of the pair, like (High FrequencTransposable words), and 16 low frequeversions, like (Low Frequency Transpoable words), and the second list with theverse, that is (High Frequency Transpoable) and (Low Frequency TransposablEach transposable word was matched winontransposable two-character control w(High Frequency Control words, like , andLow Frequency Control words, like onword frequency and, over all items withincondition, on stroke number and componcharacter frequency. Frequencies were tafrom theModern Chinese frequency dictiona(1985).

There were two nonword conditions; traposable (e.g., , ) and nontranspoable (e.g., , ), with 32 of each typmatched on character frequency. Becausewere two groups of participants for the woconditions, the nonwords were also split itwo lists so that each participant saw 16 traposable and 16 nontransposable nonwords.other 20 nontransposable words were incluin each list as filler items in order to roughequate the number of word and nonword ite

Participants

There were two groups of 16 participasampled from the same population as that u

ain the other experiments.

donsickitem

rrorseenef-

on-


Procedure

The procedure was the same as that useExperiments 1, 3, and 4, but the instructirequested that participants respond as qubut as accurately as possible whether thewas a real Chinese word or not.

TAB

The Words and Nonwords Used in

in

ly


The mean lexical decision times and erates are presented in Table 9. It can befrom the table that there were very strongfects of transposability for both words and nwords. Turning first to the word items, a st

8

Lexical Decision Task of Experiment 5

LE

the

an-

for

,,

p cto act5

haow

ionant

1 owF sign n-d

,

p os-a re-q

nF d

rdthengact-et.of

ionis a

s isthe

ssisinesre-timu-

isthethethe

515RADICAL POSITION

dard effect of word frequency was foundreaction time,F1(1,30) 5 57.67, p , .001;F2(1,62) 5 7.68, p , .01, and for errorsF1(1,30)5 32.27,p , .001;F2(1,62)5 13.91

, .001, but more importantly, the main effef transposability was significant on both re

ion times,F1(1,30)5 31.33,p , .001;F2(1,62)24.27, p , .001, and errors,F1(1,30) 5

36.45,p , .001;F2(1,62)5 10.75,p , .001. Asignificant interaction on errors indicated tthe transposability effect was greater for lfrequency than high frequency words,F1(1,30)5 12.55,p , .001; F2(1,62) 5 4.51,p , .05,though the equivalent interaction for reacttimes was only significant on the participanalysis,F1(1,30)5 4.39,p , .05; F2(1,62)5

.28,p . .1. When tested separately, the Lrequency Transposable condition differedificantly from the Low Frequency Control coition for reaction time,F1(1,30)5 21.43,p ,

.001; F2(1,30) 5 16.73,p , .001, and errorsF1(1,30) 5 34.12,p , .001; F2(1,30) 5 9.30,

, .01, while the High Frequency Transpble condition also differed from the High F

TAB

Mean Lexical Decision Times (ms)for the Two-Character Wor

uency Control condition on reaction time, but

-

t

-

ot on errors,F1(1,30) 5 17.53, p , .001;2(1,30)5 7.95,p , .01 for reaction times, an

F1(1,30)5 3.26,p . .05;F2(1,30)5 1.56,p ..1 for errors.

Clearly, the existence of another woformed from the same two characters oftarget word leads to difficulties in recognizithat target word and more so when the distring word is of higher frequency than the targSuch a result can be explained in termsdifficulties in representing character positwithin the lexical processing system. Thererepresentation for each of the charactersand

, but activation of these two representationthe same or similar regardless of whethertarget word is or . The two targetcould ultimately be discriminable on the baof a checking back procedure that determwhich of the two activated whole-word repsentations exactly matches the presented slus. The higher frequency whole-word unitlikely to be activated more strongly thanlower frequency one and this means thatformer can contribute greater interference to

9

Percentage Error Rates (in Parentheses)nd Nonwords of Experiment 5

LE

andds a

recognition of the latter than vice versa. How-

n theti

n a),

e ihi

repctlrg

d inefuolenos:re

thens-prt o

.e

p ters tha

ablw rast osa Ep han ofc g or bei ions avp eria alw ss

ighw

nsd tiled

pro-ical1d-v-beers,nta-ar-d-ctly

e isanyhar-calsrad-tri-he

ac-t inableare

osi-se?wnsttion,n-n-uldted?entosi-enor itbe

ificht,tterthemeical

toght


ever, the response time data show that evehigher frequency word suffers some comption from the lower frequency one.

When the target word has no representatiothe whole-word level (i.e., it is a nonwordthere is likely to be even greater interferencit creates a real word through transposition. Tis because there is no correct whole-wordresentation to compete against the incorreactivated one. To make a decision that the tawas not actually the one that was activatethe lexical processing system requires caranalysis. That is, just because only one whword representation is activated, it doesmean that this represents the target stimuludetailed checking back procedure would bequired to establish that it does not.

The results for the nonword items confirmconsiderable difficulty encountered with traposable characters. An analysis of the datasented in Table 5 shows a massive effectransposability on both reaction times,F1(1,30)5 196.73,p , .001; F2(1,30) 5 76.56, p ,001, and error rate,F1(1,30) 5 136.95,p ,.001; F2(1,30) 5 65.61,p , .001. Clearly, th

osition of a character within a two-charactring does not provide strong constraints onctivation of whole-word units.The results obtained here with transposords and nonwords stand in dramatic cont

o those that were obtained with the transpble characters and noncharacters used ineriments 1 and 3. Clearly, different mecisms are at work in the processingharacters within a word and the processinadicals within a character. The suggestionng made here is that radicals have positpecific representations, while characters hosition-free representations. Thus, while th

s a character-level representation forthat isctivated for the purposes of recognizingords that include that character, there ieparate representation for the radicalwhen it

occurs on the left side of a character, the rside, the top, and the bottom. At this stage,cannot know how many different positiowould be represented at the radical level anestablish this would require far more deta
research.
e-

t

fs-yet

l-tA-

e-f

e

et-x--

f--ee

la

te

o

GENERAL DISCUSSION

The series of experiments reported herevide considerable support for a hierarchframework of the type depicted in Fig.(though see Taft, Liu, & Zhu, 1999, for a moification that removes the “multicharacter” leel). While positional information appears tounimportant in the representation of charactit does seem to be important in the represetion of radicals. This is captured in the hierchical framework by virtue of the fact that raicals, but not characters, are activated direby featural information, and location in spacone such low-level feature. The absence ofconfusion arising when a character (or noncacter) is composed entirely of the same radias another suggests that the location of theicals within a character makes a major conbution to the activation of that character. Tlocation of the characters within a multicharter word, on the other hand, is unimportanactivating that word, as seen in the considerproblems arising when the two characterspositioned differently.

Does this mean that there is no general ption-free representation for a radical in ChineWhen a radical can be a character in its oright (which is true for most radicals), it muobviously have a character-level representawhich Experiment 5 suggests will be positiofree, but this is different to having a positiofree radical-level representation. How wothe character-level representation be activaEither it could be activated via an equivalrepresentation at the radical-level that is ption-specific (i.e., a unit that is activated whthere is a character space on all four sides)may exist at the character-level only andactivated via a combination of position-specunits (i.e., by the combination of the left, rigtop, and bottom radical-level units). The laeliminates the redundancy inherent informer. Either way, there is no need to assua position-free representation at the radlevel.

As discussed earlier, we are not wishingmake specific claims as to how position mi
be represented within a radical-level represen-

thin-fo

actia

ngdl

wnthe

iit

t situgtio

tonessh.t tar

resioner-astofwso

onandem

AHit

iveOa

heers.of

t isllythaf aay7;-

n-of

thatfther

) ordasnd

ensi-rdnalod-

cti-ns-).theosi-ap-

Per-michug.1iststhetoef-

d. Inm-alK-)ords-it

lenter-5).onale inAYft inso-ver,und

att be

517RADICAL POSITION

tation. Perhaps something along the lines ofsimulation developed by Mozer (1987) for lear English letter-strings could be adaptedChinese. Indeed, there are a number of charrecognition systems reported in the artificrecognition literature (see, e.g., Liao & Hua1990; Stallings, 1976) that have had to hansimilar problems. The main point to be drafrom the current research is simply thatexpert human Chinese recognition systemvery sensitive to positional information whencomes to radicals within characters, but is nosensitive to positional information whencomes to characters within words and this sgests that characters are identified via activaof radical-level representations.

Finally, consideration can be givenwhether these conclusions drawn about Chihave implications for other scripts, like EngliRadicals could be seen as being equivalenletters in an alphabetic script because theythe lowest level unit associated with featuThus, it may well be that letter transpositeffects (e.g., CALM versus CLUE, SHROT vsus PHROE) will be found only when at lehalf of the word remains intact. Indeed, allthe items used in such studies (e.g., Andre1996; Chambers, 1979) were four lettersmore and, therefore, meet this criteriWhether interference also occurs for two-three-letter words has not been tested, but seunlikely. For example, it is doubtful if SPwould ever be confused with SAP or if Ewould ever be confused with HE. Nor hasbeen tested whether a longer word will receinterference from its anagram (e.g., MANGand AMONG). If at least half of the letters inword must be positionally intact in order for trepresentation of that word to be activated, thshould be no confusion between such word

It should be noted, though, that a levelstructure appears to exist in English thahigher than the letter level, but still positionasensitive. There is considerable evidencesyllables in English are processed in terms oonset1 body structure (e.g., Bowey, 1996; K& Bishop, 1987; Treiman & Chafetz, 198Treiman, Mullennix, Bijeljac-Babic, & Rich
mond-Welty, 1995), where the ”onset“ (e.g., the
e

rerl,e

s

o

-n

e

oe.

,r.

s

e

tn

ST of STEEL) is the initial consonant or cosonant cluster and the ”body“ (e.g., the EELSTEEL) is the vowel plus the consonantsfollow that vowel (or vowel plus ”coda“). Ithere are units representing onsets and ounits representing bodies (e.g., Taft, 1991units representing onsets, vowels, and co(e.g., Plaut, McClelland, Seidenberg, aPatterson, 1996), then these are position-stive by definition. Thus, the activation of a wovia such units will be constrained by positioinformation, namely, that onsets precede bies. For this reason, EELST is unlikely to avate STEEL even though it involves the traposition of two structural units (ST and EEL

Is there a situation in English, aboveonset/body level of processing, that is as ptionally insensitive as the Chinese characterpears to be (as shown in Experiment 5)?haps we need to consider morpheprocessing. Taft (1994) and Taft and Z(1995) describe a hierarchical model like Fifor English whereby a morpheme level exabove the onset/body level. According tosame logic as that put forward in relationChinese, there should be clear transpositionfects when whole morphemes are transposefact, Taft (1985) reports such a result for copound words in English. In particular, lexicdecision responses to nonwords like WALJAY (from JAYWALK) were 6.6% (71 mslonger than those to nontransposable nonwlike TALLMOP. However, while this is a sizeable effect indicating positional insensitivity,is nowhere near the magnitude of the equivaeffect in Chinese (the 24.3% or 211 ms diffence reported for nonwords in ExperimentPerhaps one can make more use of positiinformation in the postaccess checking stagEnglish than in Chinese. For example, Jwould be expected to have a space to its leJAYWALK, but this is not so in the stimuluWALKJAY. Knowledge about spaces will prvide no such constraints in Chinese, howebecause both of the characters of a compoword have spaces on either side.

In fact, it is obvious on logical grounds thmorpheme representations in English canno
entirely insensitive to position. Affixes are mor-

ivethN)

xesstaf

on-idelyser

Onmehi

osr athe),inin

ormndesete

hef hes s at fta fo

aeer-g ots

w o-di-nsainac-

ro-

B onal-

C n inal

F 6).pseu-

R.hi-of

F the-for-

F ofesey:

F 5).anjiy:

H eseengan-.

H cter

r-

K be-tion:pell-

l-

L int on.

ageer-

L ese-lan-iv.

L in-ese

M ust.


phemes that are crucially position-sensitThere are affixes that can only occur beforestem of the word (i.e., prefixes, like RE and Uand those that can only occur after (i.e., suffilike MENT and NESS). This information mube inherent in the representation of thosefixes. Indeed, it is hard to imagine anyone cfusing NESSKINDUN with the word UNKINDNESS. So, it seems sensible to consaffix processing at the same level as the anaof onsets and bodies, namely, at a level whprocessing is highly sensitive to position.the other hand, processing of stem morphemay be more like character processing in Cnese and be only weakly associated with ption. Thus, the same unit will be activated fostem morpheme (e.g., HEAD) whether it bestem of an affixed word (as in SUBHEADINGthe first constituent of a compound word (asHEADACHE), or the second constituent (asREDHEAD).

Of course, there does need to be some fof positional information affecting compouword processing in both English and Chinor, otherwise, one could not differentiaSHOTGUN and GUNSHOT or and

. This information, however, could take torm of differently ordered links between tame morpheme (character) representationhe compound word representations (see Tal., 1998). For example, the representations

and might both be activated vialink from the representation for and the onfor , but these links would be ordered diffently in each case. Presumably, such orderinlinks provides only weak positional constrainsuch that presentation of will quitestrongly activate the representation of as

ell as that of . In contrast, we are prposing that positional information about racals is built into the radical representatiothemselves and is therefore far more constring than positional information about charters.

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Received June 10, 1998)
Revision received November 16, 1998)

positional specificity of radicals in chinese character ...positional speciﬁcity of radicals in...

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