The neuropsychological study of the working memory and the Japanese text reading

工作记忆是指同时进行信息储存和加工的大脑即时加工过程，本研究以日语文本阅读为实验对象，探讨了加工和储存的并行控制系统。由于语言理解是一个很好的例子，一个任务，需要大量的部分和最终产品的存储在复杂的信息处理服务，语言理解将是一个最佳的方法来测量并行控制系统的工作记忆。此外，日语文本具有独特的句法结构，它有两种文字，即汉字和假名。实验一采用日语词和非词考察了语音相似性效应。实验二在阅读广度任务中，被试采用了两种策略。语音策略和语义策略。结果表明，工作记忆容量大的被试（高跨度被试）在工作记忆广度上依赖语义策略，而工作记忆容量小的被试（低跨度被试）在工作记忆广度上依赖语音策略;在事件相关电位（ERP）研究中，语义启动和语音启动都表现出启动效应。结果表明，语义启动效应在ERP和反应时上均大于语音启动效应。汉字和假名均存在语义启动效应。此外，ERP数据显示语义启动效应主要发生在额叶，提示语义启动效应位于额叶，并受工作记忆的中央执行功能控制。

Working memory refers to the immediate brain processes involved in the simultaneous storage and processing of information.In the present research, the parallel control system of both processing and storing was investigated using Japanese text reading. Because language comprehension is an excellent example of a task that demands extensive storage of partial and final products in the service of complex information processing, language comprehension would be an optimal method for measuring parallel control system of working memory. Moreover, Japanese text has unique property of syntactic structure and it has two kinds of characters, that is, Kanji and Kana.In the first experiment, phonological similarity effect was investigated using Japanese word and non-words. The phonological similarity effect was found. In visual presentation, the effect was also confirmed both in Kanji and Kana.In the second experiment, while doing reading span task (RST), the subjects used two kinds of strategy. phonological strategy and semantic strategy. The results showed that the subjects with large working memory capacity who got span score in RST (high-span-subjects) depended on semantic strategy and the small working memory capacity subjects who got low span score (low-span-subjects) easily depended on the phonological strategy.In an event related potential (ERP) research, a priming effect was performed using both semantic priming and phonological priming. The results suggested that semantic priming effect was larger than phonological priming effect in both ERP and reaction time. It was also suggested that semantic priming effect was confirmed in both Kanji and Kana. Moreover, the ERP data indicated that semantic priming effect was found in mainly the frontal region of the brain, which suggest that semantic priming effect is located in the frontal region and controlled by the central executive function of working memory.