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Memory & Cognition
1998,26 (I), 75-87
Orthography and phonology in reading
Japanese kanji words: Evidence from the
semantic decision task with homophones
NAOKOSAKUMA
Tokyo Metropolitan Institute ofGerontology, Tokyo, Japan
SUMIKO SASANUMA
International University ofHealth and Welfare, Ohtawara, Japan
ITARUF. TATSUMI
Tokyo Metropolitan Institute ofGerontology, Tokyo, Japan
and
SHINOBUMASAKI
The ATR Human Information Processing Research Laboratories, Kyoto, Japan
Correspondences between spelling and sound for Japanese kanji are complex and deep. The meaning of kanji words has generally been assumed to be accessed directly from orthography without
phonological mediation. Experiment 1, however, replicated the findings of VanOrden (1987) that subjects made more false-positive errors on homophone foils than they did on nonhomophone controls in
a semantic decision task, although they did so only when the foils were orthographically similar to the
correct exemplars, which indicates both orthographic and phonological activations of meaning. Experiment 2 showed the same results when subjects were not required to pronounce the target words
after semantic decisions, which indicates automatic phonological activation of kanji words. In Experiment 3, under pattern-masking conditions, this homophony effect was reduced but remained on errors,
and the orthographic-similarity effect remained strong on both homophone and nonhomophone foils.
These results suggest that both orthography and phonology play an important role in the comprehension of kanji words.
Bentin, 1987; Patterson, 1990; Sasanuma, 1986, 1994; Seidenberg, 1985). An important question is whether variations in these correspondences between print and sound
influence word processing in reading. In the present study,
we consider the role of phonology in visual word recognition across different orthographies.
The role of phonology in visual word recognition has
been repeatedly discussed in reading research, primarily
on the basis of results obtained from experimental studies done with English words (see, e.g., Jared & Seidenberg, 1991; Van Orden, 1987). Early research on visual
word recognition suggested that phonological representation is a primary source of access to the meaning of
written words (see, e.g., Rubenstein, Lewis, & Rubenstein,
1971). This view has been termed phonologically mediated access. An alternative view, usually termed direct access, argued that the phonological code is not necessary
in skilled word recognition and that an orthographic representation activates its meaning directly (see, e.g.,
Baron, 1973). A number ofcurrent models of word recognition include both phonologically mediated access and direct access (see, e.g., Allport, 1977; M. Coltheart, Davelaar,
Jonasson, & Besner, 1977; Monsell, Patterson, Graham,
Hughes, & Milroy, 1992; Morton & Patterson, 1980; Sei-
Orthographies differ in the degree of complexity in the
relationship between their print and their sound. In shallow orthographies, such as Serbo-Croatian and Japanese
kana, the correspondences between print and sound are
simple and regular, at least at the segmental level. In deep
orthographies, such as Hebrew and Japanese kanji, in
contrast, these relationships are highly complex. Alphabetic English lies somewhere between these extremes
(see, e.g., Besner & Hilderbrandt, 1987; Frost, Katz, &
This research was started as a study parallel to that of Wydell, Patterson, and Humphreys (1993) and was carried out independently of
their study. A preliminary version of this article was reported in a paper
at the meeting of the Japanese Psychological Association, Kyoto, 1992.
This research was supported in part by the NTT Basic Laboratory research grant to S.S. We are grateful to Karalyn E. Patterson and
Taeko N. Wydell for valuable discussion and advice for constructing
earlier versions of this paper. We also wish to thank Geoffrey R. Loftus
and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
N. Sakuma, Department of Language and Cognition, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, 35-2 Sakae-cho, Itabashi-ku, Tokyo 173,
Japan (e-mail: [email protected]).
-Accepted by previous editor, Geoffrey R. Loftus
75
Copyright 1998 Psychonomic Society, Inc.
76
SAKUMA, SASANUMA, TATSUMI, AND MASAKI
denberg & McClelland, 1989). The question of exactly
how phonology is activated in reading words aloud has
been hotly debated (see, e.g., M. Coltheart, Curtis, Atkins,
& Haller, 1993; Plaut, McClelland, Seidenberg, & Patterson, 1996; Van Orden, Pennington, & Stone, 1990),
but the basic idea that both processes (or routes) to meaning-phonologically mediated access and direct access-operate to activate the meaning of written words
has been widely accepted.
Van Orden and his colleagues (Van Orden, 1987; Van
Orden, Johnston, & Hale, 1988; Van Orden et aI., 1990),
however, argued against this view of two parallel forms
of access to meaning and proposed the view that computed phonology based on print-and-sound correspondences exerts the major influence in the activation of
meaning for written English words. Van Orden (1987)
offered new evidence for the use of phonology in meaning activation that was based on a semantic-decision task
with homophones. The subjects were presented with a
category name (e.g., a flower) followed by a target word
(e.g., tulip, rows, or robs) and were asked to make a semantic decision to the target. Van Orden argued that ifthe
sound of rows, which is a homophone of rose (a true category exemplar), yielded activation of the meaning of
rose, then subjects should make more false-positive errors
to homophone foils such as rows than to nonhomophone
controls such as robs. He examined this homophony effect
further by manipulating orthographic similarity between
category exemplars and target foils. In his Experiment I,
the subjects made more false-positive errors to homophone foils than to nonhomophone controls when the foils
were orthographically similar to category exemplars. In
his Experiment 2, the homophony effect remained strong
even under pattern-masking conditions, although the orthographic-similarity effect disappeared. In his Experiment 3, he discovered an effect exerted by the frequency
of category exemplars (rose) but no systematic effect ofthe
frequency of homophone target foils (rows) themselves.
These results were interpreted by Van Orden (1987)
as being most consistent with the view that the primary
route from orthography to meaning is mediated by phonology. Van Orden explained these findings by proposing a model based on the verification hypothesis of
visual word recognition (see, e.g., Becker, 1976, 1980;
Becker & Killion, 1977; Paap, Newsome, McDonald, &
Schvaneveldt, 1982; Rubenstein et al., 1971). A visually
presented word activates its phonological representation,
which, in turn, activates a candidate set oflexical entries
(meanings). The orthographic representation of the most
active lexical entry (meaning) is then retrieved and compared with the orthographic representation of the stimulus target. This process is termed verification, which is
essentially a spelling check. If a match occurs, the lexical entry (meaning) is selected; otherwise, the verification is performed on the next most active candidate until
a match is found. In this model, a homophone target foil
(rows) will activate its correct homophonic exemplar (rose)
as a candidate; this availability of the correct exemplar in
the verification process causes more false-positive errors
on homophone foils than on nonhomophone controls,
particularly when the foil is orthographically similar to the
correct exemplar.
Furthermore, Van Orden et al. (1988) obtained the positive findings for phonological mediation in their experiments using nonword homophone foils. Van Orden et al.
(1990) developed a subsymbolic account based on two
hypotheses-covariant learning and self-consistencyfor the mappings from orthographic codes to phonological codes and to other linguistic codes (see also Van Orden & Goldinger, 1994).
However, orthographies differ in the manner in which
they represent phonology. Specifically, in Japanese kanji,
individual characters are thought to represent words or
morphemes rather than phonological units, and the relationship between orthography and phonology is complex.
It is open to question whether the phonological mediation hypothesis in word recognition could apply generally to writing systems other than English. In this paper,
we investigate the role of phonology in Japanese kanji
word recognition. Before we address the theoretical issues involved in attempting Van Orden's (1987) experiments, a brief description of some features of Japanese
kanji orthography is in order.
Japanese Kanji Orthography and
Phonological Processes
There are three different nonalphabetic orthographieslogographic kanji and two types of syllabic kana (hiragana and katakana}-in written Japanese. Roughly speaking, lexical morphemes, such as nouns and the roots of
verbs and adjectives, are written in kanji (and, rarely, in
hiragana), whereas grammatical morphemes and function words are written in hiragana, and loan noun words
are written in katakana. Words in kanji, therefore, are the
most popular forms for representing meaning in written
Japanese. The number of kanji characters is quite large;
one needs to know as many as 3,000 kanji characters to
read newspapers and ordinary texts. Furthermore, many
of these characters are complex, as well as distinct from
one another, in visual configuration (see examples in Tables I and 2).
A single kanji character can often be a word, but the
majority oflexical items are made up oftwo or more kanji
characters (Morton & Sasanuma, 1984; Morton, Sasanuma, Patterson, & Sakuma, 1992).1 A single kanji character usually has two or more pronunciations (see, e.g.,
kanji A, B, and C in Table 1),2 which can be categorized
Table 1
Examples of Single Kanji Words and Two-Kanji-Character
Words Containing Those as Component Characters
Kanji A Kanji B Kanji C
Word A
Word B
_fa
Kanji word
~ll".
~ll.
Translation
finger circle
vehicle ring
wheel
Pronunciation (KUN) Iyubil Iwal
Ikurumal Iyubi-wal
(ON) Ishii
Irinl
Isyal
Isya-rinl
ORTHOGRAPHY AND PHONOLOGY IN JAPANESE KANJI
into two types-KUN-readings and ON-readings-but a
multikanji-character word has only one legitimate pronunciation (see, e.g., words A and B in Table 1). The KUNreading is usually used when a single kanji character occurs in isolation as a word and is also used for a small set
of multikanji-character words. The ON-reading, on the
other hand, is used for most multikanji-character words
and, rarely, for a single-character word. Although there is
a strong tendency to pair the same reading type (ON-ON
or KUN-KUN, as in words A and B in Table I) rather than
to use the mixed-reading type (ON-KUN or KUN-ON)
for the pronunciation of a two-kanji-character word, apparentely no rules exist for determining which reading type
(ON or KUN) should be used (see, e.g., Morton & Sasanuma, 1984; Sasanuma, 1980, 1986). In addition, there
are many sets of homophonic single kanji characters as
well as homophonic multikanji-character words in Japanese (see Table 2).
The Role of Phonology in
Kanji Word Recognition
A number of experimental and clinical studies involving kanji word recognition have suggested that the meaning of kanji words can be directly accessed from orthographic representation (see, e.g., Goryo, 1987; Kimura,
1984; Saito, 1981; Sasanuma, 1986). On the other hand,
there have been few studies on the phonological processes
ofkanji word recognition, and they have provided no clear
evidence either for determining whether the phonology
of kanji words could be activated directly by orthography
without semantic mediation or for determining whether
phonology could contribute to the meaning activation of
kanji words (see note 3).
Recently, a neuropsychological study of Japanese patients with dementia of the Alzheimer's type suggested
that the lexical phonology ofkanji words can be activated
directly by orthography without semantic mediation
(Sasanuma, Sakuma, & Kitano, 1992). The patients in this
study showed a near-normal ability to read kanji words
aloud until they reached a very advanced stage ofthe disease process, but there was progressive deterioration of
comprehension.
More recently, Wydell, Patterson, and Humphreys
(1993) reported a study on Japanese kanji word recognition, using procedures similar to those used in Van Orden's (1987) English experiments, which suggested that
phonology may contribute to the meaning activation of
kanji words. The results oftheir no-masking experiment,
which were similar to those of Van Orden's English experiment' were that homophony affected semantic decisions for kanji words and that the effects were strongest
when the homophone target words were visually similar
to the correct exemplar ofthe category name. The results
of their kanji masking experiment, however, differed
from those of Van Orden's English masking experiment
in that the effect of visual similarity was significant even
under pattern-masking conditions, whereas there was no
effect of orthographic similarity in Van Orden's masking
experiment. Moreover, the homophony effect in the kanji
masking experiment was marginal, whereas there was a
significant effect of homophony in Van Orden's masking
experiment. Wydell et al. interpreted their results as positive evidence for an early activation ofphonology, as well
as of orthography, in accessing the meaning ofkanji words.
Unfortunately, however, there was a methodological
problem in Wydell et al.'s (1993) experiments. In some
stimulus pairs, they allowed the category name and the
target word to share identical kanji characters. Furthermore, they did not control the number ofthese occurrences
across the experimental conditions; ofthe total of 16 pairs
of category names and targets, seven pairs of visually
similar homophones, three pairs of visually similar controls, and no pairs of visually dissimilar homophones
shared identical kanji characters. There is considerable
evidence for orthographic priming effects in cases of
briefly presented pairs of letter strings. Evett and Humphreys (1981), for example, found that identification of
the target words under masking conditions was facilitated
more when primes and targets contained a number of
common letters than when their letters differed. If one
assumes that orthographic identification of a visually
similar homophone foil might have had a greater likelihood of being facilitated by priming from the category
name than did the orthographic identification of the other
foils in the masking experiment ofWydell et al. (1993),
then the activation of phonology should be facilitated in
turn. Thus, it appears necessary to replicate the study using
stimulus sets in which no pairs of category name and target contain an identical kanji character.
In the present study, we addressed the question of the
role of phonology in reading comprehension of kanji
words, using procedures similar to those used by Van Orden (1987) and Wydell et al. (1993). Specifically, we examined whether results similar to those found in Wydell
et al.'s study would be obtained under a different set of
experimental conditions (e.g., different stimulus sets, a
Table 2
Examples of Homophonic Kanji Words [One Set of Single Kanji Words (/ki/)
and Another Set of Two-Kanji-Character Words (/ka-tei/)I
Single kanji word
Pronunciation
Translation
Two-kanji-character word
Pronunciation
Translation
*
/ki/
tree
77
~
/ki/
spirit
Ie
/ki/
account
JIll
/ki/
period
.-
/ki/
opportunity
f&:iE
ii:fi
lA~
/ka-tei I
assumption
/ka-tei/
home
/ka-tei/
process
78
SAKUMA, SASANUMA, TATSUMI, AND MASAKI
different subject group, and a more reliable apparatus).
Inasmuch as no study other than that by Wydell et al. has
provided evidence that the meaning ofkanji words can be
activated by the use of phonology, particularly under
masking conditions, it would be useful to replicate their
study using a broader range of kanji characters as stimuli with another group of subjects who are native speakers of Japanese.
EXPERIMENT 1
In this experiment, we examined the basic homophony
and orthographic similarity effects on kanji word recognition using the same procedures as Van Orden's (1987)
study.
Method
Subjects. Twenty-four subjects (ages 21-35 years, 27.7 years
mean age) who were employees of the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute
of Gerontology participated. All were native speakers of Japanese
and had normal or corrected-to-normal vision.
Stimuli. The experiment involved 233 pairs of definitions (see
note 4) and target words, 50 for practice trials and 183 for the experimental trials. Experimental target words consisted of60 key targets and 123 filler targets. The key targets were 30 homophone foils
and 30 nonhomophone controls. Half of the homophone foils and
half of the nonhomophone controls were orthographically similar,
and the remaining half was orthographically dissimilar (see Appendix A).
The experimental key targets, two-kanji-character nouns, two to
four syllables in length, were selected on the basis of the following
procedure. First, a preliminary study was made to select familiar
kanji words for the stimulus pairs. One hundred students in a special
school of nursing were shown a list of homophone candidate items
written in syllabic kana and were asked to transcribe them into as
many kanji forms as possible. For each item, the two most frequently transcribed kanji forms were selected as candidate homophone pairs, with the constraint that (I) the two kanji forms ofeach
pair had the same accent pattern and that (2) over 50% of the subjects transcribed into that form. The 30 homophone pairs were chosen from these candidate pairs in such a way that they fell into two
sets that were different in terms of orthographic similarity. One set
was composed of 15 orthographically similar pairs, with the constraint that each homophone pair shared an identical character (or
identical parts of a character) in the same position, either the first
or the second position in the two-kanji-character words. The other
set was composed of 15 orthographically dissimilar pairs, with the
constraints that the members of each homophone pair shared no
characters and no component parts of a character and that the or-
thographic configurations of the whole words in each pair were as
different from each other as possible. Next, nonhomophone control
words were selected to match the 30 homophone foils in orthographic similarity. Examples of these words and definitions are
shown in Table 3.
A definition, written in kanji and lor kana, which ranged from 2
to 10 characters in length, was created for each ofthe 30 exemplars.
The main restriction observed in creating each definition was that
it not contain any kanji characters that were used for its correct exemplar, the corresponding homophone foil, or the control foil. This
restriction was necessary to avoid orthographic priming. The definitions were used twice--once for matched homophone foils and
once for nonhomophone controls.
In addition, 120 words and 90 definitions were chosen for filler
trials. Of the 120 filler words, 90 were exemplars of their categories
(yes-fillers) and 30 were not exemplars (no-fillers). Of the 90 definitions, 30 appeared twice for both yes-fillers and no-fillers and 60
appeared once for yes-fillers. Thus, the entire list (key trials plus
filler trials) had an equal number of yes and no trials. In addition,
three new pairs of a target word and a definition were chosen for
practice trials presented at the start of the session.
Because the same 30 definitions were used twice, both for the
matched homophone foils and for the control foils, the 183 pairs of
definitions and target words were compiled into two lists. In each
list, half of the homophone foils appeared in the first half of the list
and the matched control foils appeared in the last half of the list.
The order ofpresentation within each list was pseudo-random, with
the two constraints that no more than two key trials appeared consecutively and that no more than five yes or five no trials appeared
consecutively.
An additional 25 definitions and 50 target words were chosen for
a practice list. Half of the target words were exemplars of their definitions and the other half were not.
Apparatus. Stimuli were presented using three tachistoscopic
shutters mounted on Kodak slide projectors with a rear projection
screen. The shutters and projectors were interfaced with a computer
(NEC PC-9800) that controlled the stimulus presentation order as
well as the exposure duration. The stimuli, phototyped in Japanese
textbook font, were presented in black against a white background
through a small 3.5 X 9 em window on the screen. The size of each
character was 6 X 6 mm on the screen. The longest stimulus (i.e.,
a IO-character string) was approximately 0.6 X 6 em on the screen,
producing a typical horizontal viewing angle of about 6° at the typical viewing distance of 57 cm.
Procedure. All subjects were tested individually. They were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental lists. The subjects
first saw the 50 practice trials and then the 183 experimental trials
(the first 3 filler trials being for practice). The subjects saw each target word only once.
Each trial began with the presentation of a warning signal by the
experimenter, followed immediately by a definition for 1,500 msec,
which was displayed directly above a fixation point. The definition
Table 3
Examples of Definitions, Correct Exemplars, Homophone Foils,
and Nonhomophone Control Foils
Definition
Exemplar
Homophone
Control
*.
OrthographicallySimilar
Example
Translation
Pronunciation
iI~t.t
ctn31W-Q z. t
Burning of a building
1Ill*H' -Q.A.
A reporter
••
house work
Ikajil
Ikajil
meal
Isyokuji/
;".
electric light
OrthographicallyDissimilar
Example
Translation
Pronunciation
~.
fire
i[!fJ'
journalist
Ikisyal
train
Ikisyal
_:IT
IdentouJ
ORTHOGRAPHY AND PHONOLOGY IN JAPANESE KANJI
was then replaced by the target word for 500 msec, which was displayed directly below the fixation point. The subjects were instructed
to respond to the presentation of the target word as quickly and as
accurately as possible by pressing either the yes key, if they thought
that the target word was an exemplar of the given category, or the
no key, if they did not think so, and then to name the target word.
The computer recorded response times (RTs) and response keys (yes
or no). The experimenter recorded incorrect pronunciations of the
target words.
Results
In this and subsequent experiments, each subject's
RTs for the 180 experimental trials were normalized by
excluding RTs that were beyond 3 SD from his or her
mean. The percentages of outliers were small-less than
5% across the three experiments (2.36%, 1.67%, and
4.24% for Experiments 1,2, and 3, respectively). We examined error rates (false-yes responses) and RTs (for
correct no responses) for homophone foils and nonhomop hone controls in each condition of orthographic
similarity. Mean error rates and mean RTs for both subjects (within-subjects factors) and items (between-subjects
factors) were submitted to two-way analyses of variance
(ANOVAs). The independent variables were orthographic
similarity (similar or dissimilar) and homophony (homophone or nonhomophone control) (see note 5). In this
and all following experiments, subject means are reported
in the text and figures. The main results of Experiment I
are presented in Figure I.
Error data clearly showed the effects of orthographic
similarity and homophony. The subjects made 15.0% errors on orthographically similar homophones, but made
few errors on others (3.3%, 2.8%, and 1.7%). There was
amain effect ofsimilarity [Fs(1,23) = 36.39,MSe = 0.72,
p < .0001, and FJI,56) = 10.37, MSe = 4.02,p < .002]
_
Error (Homo.)
_RT(Homo.)
t:=:J Error (Non-Homo.)
-G-RT (Non-Homo.)
950
40
-......
~
0
900
30
...0
-
w
cQ)
E
~
a:
20
800 ~
...
...0
~
a.. 10
Q)
0
en
850 -
I I)
750 o
700
Similar
Dissimilar
Figure 1. The interaction between orthographic similarity and
homophony in mean percentage errors and in mean correct response times (RTs) in milliseconds from Experiment 1. The error
bars represent the 95% confidence intervals (Loftus & Masson,
1994).
79
and a main effect of homophony [Fs(l,23) = 37.67,
MSe = 0.59,p < .0001, and Fj(1,56) = 8.78, MS e = 4.02,
p < .005]. The interaction of these two factors was also
significant [Fs(1,23) = 23.93,MSe = 0.63,p<.0001,and
Fj(1,56) = 5.99, MSe = 4.02,p < .02]. A significant effect
of homophony on errors was found only when the homophone foils were orthographically similar to the correct
exemplars.
Correct RT data also showed the effects of orthographic
similarity and homophony. There was a main effect of
orthographic similarity [Fs(1,23) = 93.33, MS e = 3,019.0,
p < .0001, and F j (l ,56) = 47.39, MSe = 4,196.1, p <
.0001] and amain effect of homophony [Fs(1,23) = 10.32,
MSe = 2,758.4, p < .004, and F i(I,56) = 5.74, MS e =
4,196.1, p < .02]. The interaction of these two factors
was not significant[Fs(I,23) = 0.96, MSe = 2,339.I,p >
.3, and F j(I,56) = 0.85, MSe = 4,196.I,p >.3]. Correct
RTs for homophone foils were longer than those for nonhomophone foils when they were orthographically similar [Fs(l,23) = 9.97, MS e = 23,320.1,p < .004, by subjects, and F, (1,56) = 5.50, MSe = 23,074.1, p < .02] for
the simple effect contrast, but not when they were orthographically dissimilar [Fs(1,23) = 3.15, MSe = 7,375.5,
p = .089, and Fj(1,56) = 30.46,MSe = 4,563.3,p>.3].
Discussion
The results ofthe error analysis ofthis experiment were
similar to those of Van Orden's (1987) English experiment, showing the impact ofboth orthographic similarity
and homophony on semantic judgments. The homophony
effect in our kanji experiment was only significant when
the target foils were orthographically similar to their correct exemplars. The subjects were able to correctly reject
the homophone foils when the foils were orthographically
dissimilar. Correct RT data also showed the strong effect
of orthographic similarity on both homophone and nonhomophone foils and a reliable effect of homophony on
orthographically similar foils. Although Van Orden did
not measure RTs in his Experiments I and 2, our subjects
were approximately 100 msec slower at rejecting the target foils when they were orthographically similar to the
correct exemplar than when they were orthographically
dissimilar. RTs for homophone foils were slightly but significantly (approximately 30 msec) longer than RTs for
nonhomophone controls. These findings suggest that
phonology contributes to the activation ofthe meaning of
kanji words. In addition, however, the greater effect of
orthographic similarity, irrespective of homophony, on
RTs suggests that orthographic processing still plays a
prominent role in the semantic decisions with regard to
kanji words.
These results can be interpreted as being consistent with
both the phonological-mediation view and the parallelaccess view. In the phonological-mediation view of Van
Orden (1987), the meaning of written words is primarily
activated via phonology and the orthographic-verification
process subsequently follows to uniquely identify a target word. In this model, a homophonic foil might activate
80
SAKUMA, SASANUMA, TATSUMI, AND MASAKI
its correct homophonic exemplar as a candidate; this tends
to increase the error rate on homophone target foils relative to nonhomophone controls. Moreover, it should be
more likely that a homophone foil would be misclassified as the correct exemplar if the foil was orthographically similar to the correct exemplar. To these assumptions
made by Van Orden, we should probably add, in order to
explain the stronger effect of orthographic similarity on
the semantic decisions ofkanji words, the assumption that
the orthographic-verification process for kanji words
might take longer for orthographically similar foils than
for orthographically dissimilar foils, irrespective of phonological similarity.
On the other hand, in the parallel-access view, it is hypothesized that the meaning ofwritten words is activated
both by orthography and by phonology. Once the subjects are presented with a definition, possible semantic
candidates may be activated, and these candidates may
themselves activate corresponding orthographic and corresponding phonological representations (see Jared &
Seidenberg, 1991). Consequently, when the orthographically similar foil is presented, a partial match may take
place in orthographic representations between the candidate words and the target foil, because the candidate
words may contain a kanji character identical to one of the
two characters in the orthographically similar foil. This
conflicting information-a partial match and the mismatch
of the whole string-should slow down category judgments (Wydell et aI., 1993). In addition, a partial match
may take place in semantic representations, because
words that contain an identical kanji character are assumed to be related in the semantic network (see, e.g., Hirose, 1992; Sasanuma, 1986). Therefore, in order to reject the orthographically similar foil, the subjects will
have to carefully compare and check the meaning as well
as the orthography ofthe target foil with those of the corresponding exemplar. Furthermore, it should be more
difficult to reject a foil if it is homophonic to the exemplar, because the subjects may use the meaning activated
by the phonology of the target foil as a source for making a semantic decision. In sharp contrast, it should be
quite easy for the subjects to reject orthographically dissimilar foils. Since the dissimilar foil, by definition, contains no kanji characters identical to either of the two
kanji characters of the exemplar, the subjects can easily
detect that nothing overlaps between the orthographic
representation of the target foil and that of the exemplar
and, therefore, can easily notice the difference in meaning between the two before the target foil is fully processed to activate the exact meaning.
The question remains, however, ofwhether the phonological activation of the meaning of kanji words might
have been produced by a strategy under the control of the
subject. In Experiment 1, the subjects had to name the target words immediately after the semantic decision. This
might have caused them to attempt to generate phonology and to use it strategically to activate meaning. There
is a possibility, therefore, that different results may be
obtained under an experimental condition in which the
subjects are not required to name the target word after
making their semantic decision. Experiment 2 explored
this possibility.
EXPERIMENT 2
In Experiment 2, we examined whether it is possible
to replicate the results of Experiment 1 under the condition that the subjects were not required to name the target words immediately after semantic decision. If the
phonological-mediation view of Van Orden (1987) applies to the activation of kanji word meaning, then the
use of phonology should not be strategically controlled
by the task demand of naming; thus, results similar to
those of Experiment 1 should be obtained in Experiment 2. Wydell et al. (1993) also adopted this no-naming
procedure. We compared, therefore, the results of Experiment 2 with Wydell et al.'s results, as well as with the results of Experiment 1.
Method
Subjects. Fifteen new subjects (ages 19-35 years, 27.9 years
mean age) from the same source group as in Experiment I participated in this experiment. All were native speakers of Japanese and
had normal or corrected-to-normal vision.
Apparatus. Visual and auditory stimuli were presented using an
AV tachistoscope (lwatsu Isel: IS-70IA) interfaced with a computer (NEC PC-980 IVX). The AVtachistoscope displayed a visual
pattern on a CRT monitor (21-in.), using a raster scan method with
a P-31 rapid-decay phosphor. The decay time to 10% luminance
level was 0.1 msec after the display offset. The AV tachistoscope
can present a stimulus with an accuracy of I msec. The 32 X 32 dotmatrix characters were presented in green against a gray background.
A l O-character string was approximately 0.8 X 8 em on the display,
producing a typical horizontal viewing angle of about 3° at a typical viewing distance of 160 em. The AVtachistoscope was connected
to one start key and two response keys (yes and no) and measured
response latencies with l-msec accuracy.
Stimuli and Procedure. All stimuli were the same as those used
in Experiment I. The procedure was identical to that of Experiment I, except for the presentation of a warning signal and the naming procedure. In Experiment 2, each trial began with a 1,000-msec
warning beep by the AV tachistoscope instead of a warning signal
by the experimenter. The subjects were instructed to make yes or no
responses without naming the target word.
Results
The main results of Experiment 2 are presented in Figure 2. Error data clearly showed the effects of orthographic similarity and homophony. The subjects made
12.9%errors on orthographically similar homophones, but
made few errors on others (3.7%, 1.7%, and 0.4%). There
was a main effect of orthographic similarity [Fs( 1,15) =
16.30, MS e = 1.17, P < .001, and F j ( l , 5 6 ) = 15.27,
MS e = 1.41,p < .0003] and a main effect of homophony
[Fs(1,l5) = 9.16, MSe = 1.07,p < .009, and F j(l,56) =
7.97,MSe = 1.41,p<.007]. The interaction of these two
factors was also significant [Fs(1,15) = 13.85, MS e =
0.41,p<.002,andFj(l,56) = 4.71,MSe = 1.41,p<.03].
A significant effect of homophony on errors was found
ORTHOGRAPHY AND PHONOLOGY IN JAPANESE KANJI
_
Error(Homo.)
- A T (Homo.)
40
~ 30
...0
......
w
I/)
-...
t=::IError (Non-Homo.)
-D-AT (Non-Homo.)
950
900
850 ~
ex:::
20
800
g...
10
750
o
0
700
c:
Q)
0
Q)
Q..
en
.s
0
Dissimilar
Similar
Figure 2. The interaction between orthographic similarity and
homophony in mean percentage errors and in mean correct response times (RTs) in milliseconds from Experiment 2. The error
bars represent the 95% confidence intervals (Loftus & Masson,
1994).
only when the homophone foils were orthographically
similar to the correct exemplars. Additionally, there was
a significant effect of orthographic similarity between
the two nonhomophone foils in the subject analysis
[F.(l,15) = 4.91, MSe = 2.0,p < .05] for the simple effect contrast, but not in the item analysis [F; (1,56) = 1.51,
MSe = 2.I,p > .2].
Correct RT data showed a strong effect of orthographic
similarity on both homophone foils and nonhomophone
control foils [Fs(1,15) = 51.10,MSe = 1,524.7,p< .0001,
and FiC1,56) = 24.63, MS e = 3,287.0, p < .0001], as in
Experiment 1. However, there was no main effect ofhomophony by either subjects or items [Fs(1,15) = 3.89,
MSe = 1,273.8, P > .07, and FiCI,56) = 1.40, MSe =
3,287.0,p> .2]. The interaction ofthese two factors reached
a significant level in the subject analysis [Fs(1,15) =
5.93, MS e = 317.6, p < .03], but not in the item analysis
[FiCI,56) = 0.80, MSe = 3,287.0,p > .4]. A significant
effect of homophony on orthographically similar foils
was found in the subject analysis [Fs(l,15) = 20.37,
MS e = 6,469.5,p < .001] for the simple effect contrast,
but not in the item analysis [Fj (1 ,56 ) = 2.16, MS e =
7,084.0,p> .14, by items]. There was no homophony effect for orthographically dissimilar foils in either analysis (F < 1.2, p > .3).
Discussion
In Experiment 2, we reexamined the effects of orthographic similarity and homophony on semantic decisions with regard to kanji words using a modified procedure with no demand of naming the target words after
semantic decisions. The results ofthe error analysis were
largely similar to those of Experiment I, where the subjects were required to name the target words, as well as
to those of Wydell et al. (1993), where the subjects were
81
not required to name the target words. The subjects made
more false-positive errors on homophone foils than they
did on nonhomophone controls only when the foils were
orthographically similar to their correct exemplars. In addition, the subjects could make decisions more easily to
the orthographically dissimilar foils than to the similar
foils even when they were nonhomophone foils. These results suggest that phonological activation is not strategically controlled but occurs automatically in kanji word
recognition and that phonology, as well as orthography,
contributes to the activation ofthe meaning ofkanji words.
In RTs for correct no responses, a large main effect of
orthographic similarity was obtained; responses to orthographically similar foils involved longer latencies than
those to orthographically dissimilar foils did, which replicates the results both of Experiment I and ofthe experiment ofWydell et al. (1993). On the other hand, no effect
of homophony was found in RTs, which does not replicate either the results of Experiment I or those ofthe experiment of Wydell et al.
There are at least two possible explanations for the inconsistent effects of homophony in contrast to the stable
effects oforthographic similarity on correct RTs for kanji
words. One possibility, consistent with Van Orden's (1987)
interpretation, is that, although the meaning of written
words is primarily activated via phonology, orthographic
verification takes longer for orthographically similar foils
than it does for orthographically dissimilar foils, irrespective ofphonological similarity. The second possibility
is that the meaning of kanji words is primarily activated
directly by orthography; the phonology may be available
only in the late stage of processing for meaning. As discussed in the context of Experiment I, when orthographically similar foils are presented, the subjects might have
to carefully compare and check the incorrect target foils
with the corresponding correct exemplars. It is likely,
therefore, that the checking process costs more time for
orthographically similar foils than it does for dissimilar
foils. A significant homophony effect was found only on
the orthographically similar foils. Ifthe time taken to check
the representations for orthographically similar foils with
those for candidate words is long enough to bring about
the activation of phonology for kanji words, then the opportunity for a phonological contribution to activate meaning should increase for these words. In Experiment 3, we
explored these alternative possibilities using tachistoscopic presentation with a pattern-masking procedure,
as used by Van Orden.
EXPERIMENT 3
Van Orden (1987) argued that if"pattern-masking conditions provided a situation in which word identification
was best served by its most rapidly available sources of
activation" (p. 186), then the outcome of his masking experiment (i.e., an effect of homophony and no effect of
orthographic similarity) demonstrated that phonological
activation is an earlier source of constraint than is ortho-
82
SAKUMA, SASANUMA, TATSUMI, AND MASAKI
graphic activation. Van Orden interpreted his masking
results as evidence that orthography is relatively vulnerable to the effects of pattern masking; he argued that
these findings were in conflict with the prediction of
the parallel-access view, particularly with the delayedphonology hypothesis, which assumes that phonological
codes are late sources of constraint in lexical coding relative to direct access from orthographic codes (see, e.g.,
Allport, 1977; Seidenberg, Waters, Barnes, & Tanenhaus, 1984). Van Orden, instead, proposed a verification
model to explain these findings. Several other studies
using English words have reported evidence for a rapid
activation of phonology under masking conditions (see,
e.g., Humphreys, Evett, & Taylor, 1982; Lesch & Pollatsek, 1993; Perfetti, Bell, & Delaney, 1988; Underwood
& Thwaites, 1982).
On the other hand, there have been no positive findings
that directly support the early activation of phonology for
Japanese kanji words. Rather, several studies have demonstrated delayed activation of phonology for kanji words.
Wang (1988), for example, compared the processing time
of visual, phonological, and semantic targets of twokanji-character compounds, using Neisser's visual-search
task. In Wang's study, the Japanese subjects responded to
visual targets more quickly than to phonological or semantic targets, but there was no difference between the
latter two. Wang argued that phonological and semantic
processings of kanji words finish at the same time. If the
phonology of kanji words is available in a later stage of
word-recognition processes, any effect ofphonology that
was observed under no-masking conditions should disappear under pattern-masking conditions. In Experiment 3, we examined whether the homophony effects
and/or the orthographic similarity effects that were observed in Experiments 1 and 2 could be eliminated by
masking.
Method
Subjects. Thirty-three new subjects (ages 21-35 years, 27.8
years mean age) from the same source group participated in this experiment. All were native speakers of Japanese and had normal or
corrected-to-normal vision.
Apparatus and Stimuli. The apparatus was the same as that
used in Experiment 2. The stimuli were the same as those in Experiments I and 2. To construct a pattern mask, we used three verylow-frequency kanji characters. These characters are not used in
everyday life; most skilled readers even are unlikely to name them
correctly. The pattern mask was constructed and presented, using
an AV tachistoscope, by overlapping one character in normal image
and a two-character string in inverted image in the center of the character position that was used for presenting a target word. No subject was able to name the mask pattern, although everyone knew it
consisted of features ofkanji characters. Note that Van Orden (1987),
following the masking assumptions of Johnston and McClelland
(1980), used a pattern mask that was composed of letter features
and was constructed by overlapping alphabetic and nonalphabetic
characters. Wydell et al. (1993), however, presented a pattern mask
that consisted of crosses, not of kanji-character features.
Procedure. The procedure was the same as that in Experiment 2,
with four exceptions: (I) all target words were followed by the mask
pattern; (2) SOA between the target word and the pattern mask was
determined separately for each subject; (3) the subjects were permitted to respond to the target words using a third response mode,
namely "I don't see anything," instead of pressing either the yes or
the no key; and (4) the subjects were asked to name the target word
after making a response, as in Experiment I and in Van Orden
(1987), in order to check the hit rate oftarget identification for each
subject after the experiment.
In Van Orden's (1987) masking experiment, the critical SOA was
set to be so short that the subjects could not report any nonexemplar target words. Although we attempted to match Van Orden's
procedure as closely as possible, a pilot study showed that our subjects could no longer make any response when the critical SOA was
set in that manner. We thus used the following modified procedure
for setting individual SOAs in the practice trials.
Practice began with a 150-msec SOA. After several warm-up trials, the SOA was decreased by 10-msec steps until it became so
brief that the subjects could not identify three successive target
words. Next, 10 successive trials were used for estimation of the
critical SOA that would produce a 70% to 80% performance level
of identification of the targets. The SOA was adjusted by +10 or
- 10 msec during the next 10 trials if the performance level was
outside this criterion range. The critical SOAs for the subjects ranged
between 40 and 110 msec; the average was 70 msec. The critical
SOA was fixed throughout the experimental trials for each given
subject.
Each trial began with the presentation of a warning beep for
1,000 msec, followed by a definition for 1,500 msec. The definition
was then replaced by the target word, followed immediately by a
pattern mask. The pattern mask remained on the display until the
subject responded. The subjects were informed of the sequence of
events and were told that they should try to respond to the presentation of the target word by pressing either the yes or the no key and
then naming the target word. The subjects were also instructed that,
in case they were unable to make any decisions for a given target
word, they should not press the no key, but say instead, "I don't see
anything." This procedure was used to avoid a possible bias to the
no-key response. A computer recorded both RTs and key responses.
The experimenter recorded incorrect pronunciations of the target
words and "don't see" responses.
Results
Data from 5 subjects who had a hit rate oftarget identification for the 180 experimental trials greater than
80% were excluded from the analysis. Furthermore, data
from 6 subjects who had a rate of "don't see" responses
to 60 experimental key trials greater than 10% were also
excluded. Thus, we analyzed the data from 22 subjects in
the same manner as in Experiments 1 and 2. The mean
hit rate of target identification for 180 experimental trials was 64.1 %, and the mean percentage of "don't see"
responses in 60 experimental key trials was 2.4%. The
main results of Experiment 3 are presented in Figure 3.
The error data showed a strong effect of orthographic
similarity on both homophone foils and nonhomophone
control foils and a reliable effect of homophony on orthographically similar foils. The subjects made 43.6%
errors on orthographically similar homophones and 34.2%
errors on orthographically similar controls, but made relatively few errors on orthographically dissimilar conditions (14.2% and 10.6%). There was a main effect of orthographic similarity [Fs(l ,21) = 165.20, MSe = 2.11,
p< .0001, andFj(I,56) = 55.78, MSe = 9.15,p< .0001]
and a main effect of homophony in the subject analysis
ORTHOGRAPHY AND PHONOLOGY IN JAPANESE KANJI
83
Discussion
The results of the present kanji masking experiment
showed that the effect of orthographic similarity re70
mained strong both on false-positive errors and on cor1500
rect RTs, whereas the effect of homophony was relatively
60
reduced but remained significant on errors for ortho0'
1400
graphically similar foils. The false-positive error rate of
~ 50
E
43.6%
for orthographically similar homophone foils was
e?
1300 ;;
significantly
different from the corresponding error rate
40
IUJ
of 34.2% for the orthographically similar nonhomo1200 ~
'E 30
phones, as well as from that of 14.2% for orthographically
dissimilar homophone foils. The mean false-positive error
~
1100 ~
Q) 20
rate
for homophone foils was 28.9%, and the correspondo
c..
ing
error
rate for nonhomophonic controls was 22.4%.
1000
10
No reliable effect of homophony was found in the correct RT data.
--'---' 900
In contrast, in the results of the English masking experSimilar
Dissimilar
iment by Van Orden (1987), the orthographic-similarity
Figure 3. The differences in mean percentage errors and in
effect that was observed under no-masking conditions
mean correct response times (RTs) in milliseconds between ordisappeared,
but the homophony effect remained strong.
thographic similar and dissimilar foils in Experiment 3. The
The false-positive error rate of 40% for similarly spelled
error bars represent the 95% confidence intervals (Loftus &
Masson, 1994).
homophone foils was not significantly different from the
corresponding error rate of 46% for less similarly spelled
homophone foils. The mean false-positive error rate for
[Fs(l,21) = 9.54, MSe = 2.20, P < .006] and marginally homophone foils was 43%, and the corresponding error
in the item analysis [F i (l ,56 ) = 3.37, MS e = 9.15,p = rate for nonhomophonic spelling controls was 17.5%.
These contrasting findings for the English masking
.072]. The interaction of these two factors was marginally significant in the subject analysis [Fs( I ,21) = 3.72, experiment and our Japanese kanji masking experiment
MS e = 1.l0,p = .067] but not in the item analysis [fi(l,56) suggest clear-cut differences between the two orthographies in the early processes ofvisual word recognition. In
= 0.66, MS e = 9.15,p > .4]. The subjects made more errors to homophone foils than to nonhomophone foils the English experiment, phonological activation of written words occurs soon enough to exert an influence on sewhen they were orthographically similar [Fs(l ,21) =
19.81, MSe = 21.84, P < .0002, and F j(I,56) = 3.50, mantic decisions under the brief-exposure conditions of
MS e = 32.03,p = .067] for the simple effect contrast, but pattern masking. In our Japanese experiment, in contrast,
not when they were orthographically dissimilar [Fs(l,21) partial phonological activation of written words may oc= 2.97, MS e = 3.27, P > .10, and F j ( l , 5 6 ) < 1, MS e =
cur, but not fully or quickly enough to affect semantic
decisions under masking conditions. Rather, orthography
4.8,p> .47].
Although overall RTs in Experiment 3 were slower exerts the major influence on the activation of meaning
than those in Experiments I and 2, the RT data showed a for kanji words under masking conditions.
The findings of our masking experiment were essenclear effect of orthographic similarity on both homophone foils and nonhomophone control foils, but no ef- tially similar to those ofWydell et a1.'s (1993) kanji maskfect of homophony even on orthographically similar ing experiment, although there were also some differences.
foils. There was a main effect of orthographic similarity They found a strong effect oforthographic similarity, irre[Fs(l,21) = 20.30, MSe = 28,206.3, p < .0002, and spective of homophony, on errors but not on correct RTs.
F j ( l , 5 6 ) = 17.90, MSe = 32,290.2,p < .0001], but no The absence of an effect of orthographic similarity on cormain effect of homophony by either subjects or items rect RTs in Wydell et al.s experiment might have arisen
[F.(I,21) = 2.63,MSe = 32,914.I,p>.12,andfi(l,56) = because they used an inadequate stimulus set of category
1.05, MS e = 32,290.2, P > .3]. The interaction of these names and target words; some of their category names
two factors was not significant either by subjects or by were written in an unusual sentence-style and some of
items [Fs(l,21) = 0.002,p> .9, andFj(I,56) = 0.46,p > them did not represent an accurate meaning for their cor.5]. The difference between homophone and nonhorno- rect exemplars. They also found a marginal effect of hophone foils was not significant either in orthographically mophony on errors when the target words were orthosimilar foils [~(l,21) = 2.46, MS e = 45,120.0, P > .1, graphically similar foils: The VS.HOM (Visually Similar
and FJ I ,56) < 0.1, MS e = 1,904.0, P > .8] or in ortho- Homophone) "foils were significantly more error prone
graphically dissimilar foils [Fs(l ,21) = 2.26, MSe =
than any other foil type (p < .0 I) except for the VS.NON41,604.7, P > .1, and Fi (l ,56) = 1.45, MS e = 46,886.5, HOM foils (the critical difference, which had to be equal
to or greater than .248 to be reliable at the .05 level was
p> .2] for the simple effect contrast.
Error (Homo.)
_RT(Homo.)
c::::::::::J Error (Non-Homo.)
--G-RT (Non-Homo.)
en
e
a
84
SAKUMA, SASANUMA, TATSUMI, AND MASAKI
.247)" (Wydell et aI., 1993, p. 501). By contrast, the effect
of homophony on errors under masking conditions was
significant in our experiment in those cases in which the
definitions and the targets of the stimulus pairs had no
identical kanji characters between them.
These effects were interpreted by Wydell et aI. (1993)
as support for the contention that phonological representation as well as orthographic representation can be derived sufficiently quickly to affect judgments under masking conditions. We endorse their interpretation that there
is an early orthographic activation of meaning in kanji
word recognition. We hesitate, however,to accept their interpretation that there is an early phonological activation
of meaning, because a significant effect of homophony
under the masking condition was found only on errors
and only on the orthographically similar foils in both our
kanji study and Wydell et aI.'sstudy.Correct RTs for orthographically similar foils were significantly longer than
those for orthographically dissimilar foils; this longer time
might foster phonological contributions to the activation
of meaning. Thus, there still remains the question of
whether the activation of phonology is rapid enough to
activate the meaning of kanji words prior to the meaning
activation from orthography. Undoubtedly, further research needs to be done in order to clarify the time-course
for the processes by which the phonology of kanji words
is computed from the orthography. We tentatively conclude that orthographic activation is an early constraint
in lexical coding relative to phonological activation in
kanji word recognition.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The present study addressed the question of whether
the role of phonology in visual word recognition and
comprehension differs across different orthographies. To
investigate this question, we carried out three experiments for familiar kanji words with Japanese subjects,
using paradigms that were equivalent to Van Orden's
(1987) semantic decision task for English words.
In Experiments 1 and 2, the subjects were more likely
to make false-positive errors on homophone foils than
on nonhomophone foils only when the target foils were
orthographically similar to the corresponding correct exemplars. They made few errors when the target foils were
orthographically dissimilar. The task demand of naming
did not affect the results; homophone effects were observed whether subjects were or were not required to name
the target words. The results of these experiments indicate that phonology as well as orthography contributes to
the activation of the meaning of kanji words, which replicates the findings of Van Orden's (1987) English study
and those ofWydell et aI.'s (1993) Japanese kanji study.
The results of Experiment 3, however, were contrary
to those of Van Orden's (1987) English masking experiment. In the English study, the effect of orthographic similarity observed under no-masking conditions disap-
peared under masking conditions, but the effect of homophony remained strong. In our kanji masking experiment, on the other hand, the effect of orthographic similarity remained strong on both errors and correct RTs,
whereas the effect of homophony that was observed
under no-masking conditions was relatively reduced but
significant on errors to orthographically similar foils
under masking conditions. The results ofWydell et aI.'s
(1993) masking experiment for kanji words were essentially similar to those of our kanji masking experiment.
These results ofkanji masking experiments indicate that,
although the phonology of kanji words is automatically
activated and this activation may at least partly contribute to the meaning activation, it is orthography that is
the primary source of the activation of the meaning of
kanji words. These findings from kanji masking experiments are consistent with the parallel-access view but inconsistent with the phonological-mediation view.
One major difference between Van Orden's (1987) English study and the two kanji studies was in the effect of
orthographic similarity under the masking conditionsno effect in English, as opposed to strong effects in kanji.
How do we explain this difference? As has already been
pointed out by Wydell et aI. (1993), many homophones
(e.g., rows vs. rose) in English that are not spelled alike
have substantial spelling overlap in general (although a
very small number of exceptional examples, such as eight
and ate, exist), while orthographically dissimilar homophones in kanji have nothing in common orthographically
(Wydell et aI., 1993, pp. 501--502). In an alphabetic orthographic system like English, it is difficult to avoid a
spelling overlap between the two members of any homophonic pairs of words. In kanji orthography, on the other
hand, there are numerous homophonic words whose orthographic patterns are completely distinct from each
other. The differences between similarly spelled homophones and less similarly spelled homophones in Van Orden's English study can be thought of as being within the
range oforthographically similar homophones in our kanji
study. This difference in the degree of orthographic similarity might have been responsible for the different results
for the effects of orthographic similarity under masking
conditions. Suppose that orthographically "dissimilar"
foils, rather than "less-similar" foils, in English (e.g.,
eight/ate rather than rose/rows) were used for the target
foils of their category names. One would then expect to
obtain a significant effect of orthographic similarity on errors, even in the masking experiment, which, in turn,
would provide evidence to support the view that the meaning of English words is activated directly by orthography.
Thus, it can be concluded that, although phonological mediation may occur in the activation of meaning for written
English words, it is open to question whether the occurrence of phonological mediation is an obligatory process
for the activationof meaning for written Englishwords.This
view of ours appears to be supported by recent experimental findings by V. Coltheart, Avons, Masterson, and
ORTHOGRAPHY AND PHONOLOGY IN JAPANESE KANJI
Laxon (1991), by V. Coltheart, Patterson,and Leahy (1994),
and by Jared and Seidenberg (1991), among others.
In conclusion, the results of the present experiments
with kanji words support the parallel-access view that
both orthography and phonology contribute to the activation ofthe meaning of written words. This general conclusion is consistent with Wydell et al.'s (1993) kanji study.
The contrasting findings for English and Japanese kanji
words under masking conditions would also suggest that
the relative time-courses ofthe parallel routes to meaning,
one from orthography and the other from phonology, are
different for the two languages. These findings, taken together, suggest that, although the basic processes ofreading have common features across different orthographies,
the detailed nature ofthese processes, especially the timecourse of the processes, differs across different orthographies (see, e.g., Besner & Hilderbrandt, 1987; Patterson, 1990; Perfetti & Zhang, 1991; Sasanuma, 1986,
1994; Seidenberg, 1985; Tabossi & Laghi, 1992). Much
future work focusing on these differences, as well as on
the similarities, across different orthographies is required
for the further understanding of universal and languagespecific features of reading processes.
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NOTES
I. According to Yokosawa and Umeda (1988), approximately 70% of
the 51,962 words in one Japanese dictionary are two-kanji-character
words and the average word length is 2.4 characters.
2. There are a small number of kanji characters which have only one
type of reading---either a KUN-reading or an ON-reading. Of the total
of 1,945 kanji characters of contemporary standard usage for Japanese
written language-ealled "Joyo kanji" in Japanese-c-Zfitl (12.9%) kanji
characters have only one type of reading in the "Joyo kanji" table.
3. Wydell, Patterson, and Humphreys (1993) state that the semantically mediated procedure is believed to be the only way to retrieve the
phonology of kanji words. This commentary seems to be insufficient,
because a nonsemantic direct route for recoding from orthography to
phonology (sometimes a bypassing route) has been assumed in some
models for kanji word recognition (see, e.g., Goryo, 1987; Kaiho & Nomura, 1983; Sasanuma, 1986). Unfortunately, however, the existence of
the nonsemantic direct route for kanji words has not been demonstrated
by clear experimental evidence thus far.
4. We used the term definition instead of category name in this paper,
because our category names expressed very narrow, specific categories->
for example a chance for the exemplar opportunity, the homophone foil
machine, and the control foil function (see also Appendixes A and B).
5. We used definitions twice for a given subject in the present experiments---once for the homophone foils and once for the matched nonhomophone controls, although the order of presentations of the foils
was controlled over the different halves of the lists. To examine whether
this repetition of definitions affected the performances, we analyzed the
false-positive errors, comparing the first and second halves of the lists
using a three-way analysis of variance in each experiment. The only significant effect was the interaction of repetition and orthographic similarity in Experiment I : More errors were made on orthographically similar foils in the first halfthan were made in the second half of the lists
[Fs(l,46) = 4.49, MS. = 65.43,p < .05]. There was no other significant
effect of repetition over Experiments 1,2, and 3.
APPENDIX A
Correct Exemplars and Target Foils Used in Experiments 1-3
Exemplar
Definition
Homophone
Control
Definition
Orthographically Similar Foils
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ORTHOGRAPHY AND PHONOLOGY IN JAPANESE KANJI
87
APPENDIXB
Correct Exemplars and Target Foils Used in Experiments 1-3 Translated into English
Definition
Exemplar
Homophone
Control
To grow plants
To open a play or drama
Burning of a building
An interest
Not in a straight way
A chance
The constituent parts of a matter
Lights used to decorate a stage
To compare things with others
Impatientness
Cold
One who has great capacity
Shooting a gun
A plan that comes up incidentally
To hold no job
Orthographically Similar Foils
gardening
entertainments
open a garden to the public
raising of a curtain
fire
house work
concern
admiration
indirectness
joint
opportunity
machine
atom
genesis
illumination
proof
contrast
object
short temper
short term
low temperature
low-pitched sound
genius
natural calamity
firing
departure
idea
forwarding
inoccupation
colorless
military arts
development
meal
center of the Metropolis
function (math.)
function
original
explanation
countermeasure
shortwave
dullness
weather
sale
development
impossible
Orthographically Dissimilar Foils
One who treats a disease
A course of going forward
A reporter
Kindheartedness
A microorganism which is
organized with one cell
To agree with an opinion
A customary
Going forward
Height
Personality
To figure to oneself
The formal price for sale
The look of the sky
Packing
To get old
doctor
process
journalist
goodwill
bacteria
will
home
train
action
recently
criminal investigation
election
electric light
doctor's office
effect
approval
habit
progress
stature
character
imagination
fixed price
weather
wrapping
aging
acidity
week
faith
prudence
accuracy
creation
decline
change of schools
broadcasting
corridor
place of meeting
talks
housewife
dictionary
blood vessel
hall
conscience
behavior
transformation
chorus
(Manuscript received May 20, 1996;
revision accepted for publication December 17, 1996.)