Reading aloud pseudo-characters by individuals with acquired dyslexia: Evidence for lexically mediated processes in reading Chinese

This study examined a hypothesis discussed in Bi, Han, Weekes, and Shu (Citation2007) of a non-lexical system consisting of correspondence rules between character subcomponents and phonology in reading Chinese. It contrasts with the lexical view stating that reading aloud must be lexically mediated as assumed in all current models of character naming. To contrast these accounts, we asked two Cantonese brain-injured anomic individuals with largely preserved reading abilities to read aloud non-existing phonetic compounds containing a free-standing or a non-free-standing phonetic radical. The lexical view predicts that both subjects should be able to provide plausible responses to pseudo-characters, whereas such a prediction is not made by the non-lexical account. We found that both participants could produce legitimate responses to pseudo-characters, similar to the normal individuals. Furthermore, their responses to complex pseudo-characters were strongly influenced by the presence of free-standing phonetic radicals, lending further support to the lexical view.