Validation of constituent logographemes and radicals in Chinese characters using handwriting data

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Studies have shown that logographemes and radicals, subcharacter units in Chinese characters, are represented in the orthographic lexicon and are functional processing units in the writing of Chinese characters. Nevertheless, there is no consensus regarding how characters should be segmented into logographemes and radicals. This article reports handwriting data for a list of 209 Chinese characters (95 nonphonetic compounds and 114 phonetic compounds) in a copying task. To validate the constituent logographemes and radicals of the target Chinese characters, comparisons among between-radical interstroke intervals (ISIs), between-logographeme ISIs, and within-logographeme ISIs, as well as their interactions with orthographic factors including character frequency, stroke number, and configuration, were conducted using factorial analyses. The results showed that the ISI comparison method is effective in validating the constituent logographemes and radicals in Chinese characters. On the basis of this list of 209 stimuli, another 1,227 Chinese characters that share the same set of radicals with the stimuli were further identified. Their constituent logographemes were deduced accordingly. Altogether, the over 1,000 Chinese characters with validated constituent logographemes will serve as a powerful reference for future psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic research. Future potential applications are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)305-316
Number of pages12
JournalBehavior Research Methods
Volume52
Issue number1
Early online date14 May 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2020

Keywords

  • Chinese
  • Database
  • Logographemes
  • Radicals

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology
  • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
  • Psychology (miscellaneous)
  • General Psychology

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