Automatic processing of positional and movement cues in Chinese character perception

Abstract

Study of sign language and neuropsychology suggest visual and movement cues are linguistic for deaf signers and brain damaged patients. Research on selective attention shows skilled Chinese readers use semantic radicals automatically and pre-lexically in a semantic task. This leads to a hypothesis that skilled Chinese readers encode spatial and movement cues automatically during character perception. Two experiments were conducted in the current study. In Adding Part (AP) experiment, each character was divided into two parts, then presented one after the other. Subjects were to name the characters. We hypothesized that a positional cue between the two parts was not necessary. Results were as predicted. In the Path Memory (PM) experiment, characters were divided into two or three parts. Results showed subjects performed best when the stimuli were presented at a medium speed. The positional cue in AP and movement cue in PM was processed automatically. We therefore concluded that both position and movement are linguistic cues in character perception.