Facilitation and Interference in Visual Processing of Words and Pictures

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The purpose of this investigation was to see whether there are any differences in visual processes of Japanese letters,i.e. kanji and kana and pictures(line drawings of familiar objects), measuring voice reaction times for the words and pictures. Main findings were as follows.PRIMING EFFECT IN VOICE REACTION TIME FOR KANJI AND KANA WORDS:Tested prime-target relations were; Same scripts(kanji-kanji or kana-kana),same sounds(same words in kanji-kana) and similar meanings (war-peace, flower-tulip). We found similarity or sameness in shape, sound and meaning caused large facilitatory priming effect on the voice reaction times for the test words in all cases. We found also the same tendencies in the case of auditory prime word to visual target, and in lexical decision task.STROOP TYPE INTERFERENCE EFFECT IN PICTURE NAMING TASK:@pICTURES with congruent words(their names), with incongruent words and with nonsense words were presented and the subjects were asked to name the pictures. Analyses of the picture naming times revealed facilitatory priming effect for the congruent condition and inhibitory effect for the nonsense word condition.On the bases of above findings, theoretical discussions were made on visual processes of Japanese characters.