Facilitation and Interference in Visual Processing of Words and Pictures

本研究的目的是观察日本字母（即汉字和假名）和图片（熟悉物体的线条画）的视觉过程是否存在差异，测量单词和图片的语音反应时间。主要研究结果如下：汉字和假名的语音反应时启动效应：测试的启动-目标关系为：相同的文字（汉字-汉字或假名-假名），相同的声音（汉字-假名中的相同单词）和相似的含义（战争-和平，花-郁金香）。我们发现，在所有的实验条件下，形状、声音和意义的相似或相同都会对测试词的声音反应时产生较大的易化启动效应。图片命名任务中的Stroop型干扰效应：呈现含有一致词（名称）、不一致词和无意义词的图片，并要求被试命名。对图片命名时间的分析揭示了一致条件下的易化启动效应和无意义词条件下的抑制效应，并在此基础上对汉字的视觉加工进行了理论探讨。

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.