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. 2018 Apr 2;13(4):e0194405.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0194405. eCollection 2018.

Transfer of the left-side bias effect in perceptual expertise: The case of simplified and traditional Chinese character recognition

Tianyin Liu  1 , Su-Ling Yeh  2 , Janet H Hsiao  1
Affiliations

Transfer of the left-side bias effect in perceptual expertise: The case of simplified and traditional Chinese character recognition

Tianyin Liu et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

The left-side bias (LSB) effect observed in face and expert Chinese character perception is suggested to be an expertise marker for visual object recognition. However, in character perception this effect is limited to characters printed in a familiar font (font-sensitive LSB effect). Here we investigated whether the LSB and font-sensitive LSB effects depend on participants' familiarity with global structure or local component information of the stimuli through examining their transfer effects across simplified and traditional Chinese scripts: the two Chinese scripts share similar overall structures but differ in the visual complexity of local components in general. We found that LSB in expert Chinese character processing could be transferred to the Chinese script that the readers are unfamiliar with. In contrast, the font-sensitive LSB effect did not transfer, and was limited to characters with the visual complexity the readers were most familiar with. These effects suggest that the LSB effect may be generalized to another visual category with similar overall structures; in contrast, effects of within-category variations such as fonts may depend on familiarity with local component information of the stimuli, and thus may be limited to the exemplars of the category that experts are typically exposed to.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Examples of composite faces created from the original face.
The left-left composite face looks more similar to the original face than the right-right composite face.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Examples of mirror symmetrical Chinese characters.
Same set of characters in (a) Ming Font and (b) Feng Font.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Examples of left (LL) and right (RR) chimeric and mirror (RL) Chinese characters created from original mirror-symmetric characters (LR).
Characters are presented in both Ming and Feng fonts in all three character types: (a) shared, (b) simplified, and (c) traditional characters.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Placement of fingers and procedure in a left-side bias task.
Fig 5
Fig 5. Left-side bias in perceiving shared characters in simplified and traditional Chinese readers and novices of Chinese (means and 95% CIs).
Asterisks indicate significant Left-side bias (one sample t-test against the chance level .5) in each condition separately; * p < .05; ** p < .01.
Fig 6
Fig 6. Left-side bias in perceiving simplified characters in simplified and traditional Chinese readers and novices of Chinese (means and 95% CIs).
Asterisks indicate significant Left-side bias (one sample t-test against the chance level .5) in each condition separately; * p < .05; ** p < .01.
Fig 7
Fig 7. Left-side bias in perceiving traditional characters in simplified and traditional Chinese readers and novices of Chinese (means and 95% CIs).
Asterisks indicate significant Left-side bias (one sample t-test against the chance level .5) in each condition separately; * p < .05; ** p < .01.
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