An ERP Study on the Role of Phonological Processing in Reading Two-Character Compound Chinese Words of High and Low Frequency

Abstract

Unlike in English, the role of phonology in word recognition in Chinese is unclear. In this event-related potential experiment, we investigated the role of phonology in reading both high- and low-frequency two-character compound Chinese words. Participants executed semantic and homophone judgment tasks of the same precede-target pairs. Each pair of either high- or low-frequency words were either unrelated (control condition) or related semantically or phonologically (homophones). The induced P200 component was greater for low- than for high-frequency word-pairs both in semantic and phonological tasks. Homophones in the semantic judgment task and semantically-related words in the phonology task both elicited a smaller N400 than the control condition, word frequency-independently. However, for low-frequency words in the phonological judgment task, it was found that the semantically related pairs released a significantly larger P200 than the control condition. Thus, the semantic activation of both high- and low-frequency words may be no later than phonological activation.

Keywords: Chinese word recognition; N400; P200; homophonic; word frequency.

Figure 1

Global field power averaged across all experimental conditions and across 24 subjects.

Figure 2

Mean response times (RT) and error rates for the 2 types of trials in both the semantic task and the homophone task (error bars indicate standard error).

Figure 3

Grand mean event-related potentials in response to target words, from representative electrodes (LA, LC, LP, RA, RC, RP, Fz, Cz, and Pz), for homophonic and control pairs in the semantic task.

Figure 4

Grand mean event-related potentials in response to target words, from representative electrodes (LA, LC, LP, RA, RC, RP, Fz, Cz, and Pz), for the semantically related and control pairs in the homophone task.

Figure 5

Topographic maps of the different waves in the semantic task for the 160–280 (homophonic minus control) and 300–500-ms (control minus homophonic) epochs following target onset.

Figure 6

Grand mean event-related potentials in response to target words, from 6 anterior frontal electrodes (Fpz, Fp1, Fp2, AF3, AF4, and AF8), for the semantically related and control pairs of low-frequency in the homophone task.

Figure 7

Topographic maps of the difference waves in the homophone task for the 160–280 (semantically related minus control) and 300–500-ms (control minus semantically related) epochs following target onset.