Comparing the Frequency Effect Between the Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks in Chinese

Summary

Researchers adopt both the lexical decision task and the naming task to investigate some important topics such as character/word recognition by comparing the frequency effect between these two tasks. This article introduces this approach through two exemplar experiments and elaborates on the underlying logic.

Abstract

In psycholinguistic research, the frequency effect can be one of the indicators for eligible experimental tasks that examine the nature of lexical access. Usually, only one of those tasks is chosen to examine lexical access in a study. Using two exemplar experiments, this paper introduces an approach to include both the lexical decision task and the naming task in a study. In the first experiment, the stimuli were Chinese characters with frequency and regularity manipulated. In the second experiment, the stimuli were switched to Chinese two-character words, in which the word frequency and the regularity of the leading character were manipulated. The logic of these two exemplar experiments was to explore some important issues such as the role of phonology on recognition by comparing the frequency effect between both the tasks. The results revealed different patterns of lexical access from those reported in the alphabetic systems. The results of Experiment 1 manifested a larger frequency effect in the naming task as compared to the LDT, when the stimuli were Chinese characters. And it is noteworthy that, in Experiment 1, when the stimuli were regular Chinese characters, the frequency effect observed in the naming task was roughly equivalent to that in the LDT. However, a smaller frequency effect was shown in the naming task as compared to the LDT, when the stimuli were switched to Chinese two-character words in Experiment 2. Taking advantage of the respective demands and characteristics in both tasks, researchers can obtain a more complete and precise picture of character/word recognition.

Introduction

In the reading experience, higher occurrence of a word increases the speed at which it will be identified, which is known as the frequency effect in the psycholinguistic field. Manipulating the variable of word frequency in psychophysical research, people observed lower thresholds of recognizing common words^1,2. In the late 1970s, the word frequency has been widely regarded as one of most important variables influencing word identification^3,4. Focusing on the word frequency and involving other related variables, most theories in explaining the word recognition had been constructed and spread^5-9. Hence if it is claimed that one task can....

Protocol

All subjects must give informed written consent before the administration of experimental protocols. All procedures, consent forms, and the experimental protocol were approved by the Research Ethics Committee of National Taiwan University.

1. Comparing the Frequency Effect between the Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks in Chinese Character Recognition (Experiment 1)

1. Recruit the Participants
   1. Recruit forty-four students from National Taiwan University to participate in both the LDT and the naming task. The participants must be native Chinese speakers with normal or corrected-to-normal vision, and fluent in listening, sp....

Results

The frequency effect was observed to be robust in both the two tasks, the evidence of which was significantly shorter RT for the high-frequency characters. More importantly, a frequency by task interaction was found. Post-hoc comparisons showed a larger frequency effect in the naming task than in the LDT, which was different from those reported by the studies in the alphabetic systems.

Moreover, a regularity by frequency interac.......

Discussion

This study demonstrates that the differences in frequency effects between the two tasks can help to elucidate the role of phonology on recognition such as pre-lexical and post-lexical phonology. In Chinese character recognition (Experiment 1), the phonology process may be post-lexical with a larger frequency effect in the naming task than in the LDT. This finding is different from the results reported in alphabetic languages. In Chinese word recognition (Experiment 2), a smaller frequency effect in the naming task may be.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Standard PC
E-Prime (version 2.0)	Psychology Software Tools
Serial Response Box	Psychology Software Tools		The serial response box includes the voice key, which  allows researchers to collect vocal latencies with confidence.
Microphone			It can be used to detect the incoming sound by the participant