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Jun Yamada - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The Consistency of Multiple-Pronunciation Effects in Reading: The Case of Japanese Logographs
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 1998Co-Authors: Yuriko Kayamoto, Jun Yamada, Hiro-omi TakashimaAbstract:Naming latencies were measured for single- and multiple-reading (pronunciation) Kanji words with two frequency levels in Experiment 1. Results showed that multiple-reading Kanji are named much slower than are single-reading controls, the effect of multiple reading being greater than that of frequency. There was found to be measurable competition between two readings of a multiple-reading Kanji. In Experiment 2, it was demonstrated that there are multiple-reading Kanji which are named as fast as single-reading Kanji, thereby showing that no significant competition is induced in them. In light of the theoretical perspective in this study, the conflicting results reported by previous studies are discussed.
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Semantic activation by Japanese Kanji: evidence from event-related potentials.
Perceptual and motor skills, 1998Co-Authors: Mitsuo Hayashi, Yuriko Kayamoto, Hideki Tanaka, Jun YamadaAbstract:In a character-judgment paradigm, the subject quickly pressed a key when a hiragana (Japanese syllabary) appeared on a display and did nothing when a Kanji (Japanese logograph) appeared. The amplitude of the N400 component was compared when four types of visual stimuli were used: (Type 1) single Kanji--Grade 1- to 3-level words, (Type 2) single Kanji--Grade 1- to 3-level bound morphemes, (Type 3) single Kanji--high school- and college-level bound morphemes, and (Type 4) obsolete Kanji. Analysis showed that N400 was largest in the temporal-occipital areas for the Type 1 stimuli and larger in the right parietal area for Type 2 than Type 3 stimuli. The analyses of N400 to semantic stimulations have been conducted and discussed in terms of their meaningfulness, age when writing of these Kanji was mastered, and linguistic status (Kanji versus nonKanji). Most interestingly, the Types 3 and 4 Kanji did not activate semantic responses, showing that they did not function as linguistic units, i.e., Kanji, in the mental lexicon.
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Latencies for Naming Bound Morphemes and Words in Kanji
Language and Speech, 1994Co-Authors: Jun YamadaAbstract:Naming latency for Kanji was compared under three conditions: (1) the B-B (bound morpheme to bound morpheme) condition where single bound morpheme Kanji were presented for naming, (2) the W-W (word to word) condition where two-Kanji words were presented with the stimulus Kanji used in the B-B condition appearing in the initial position, and (3) the B-W (bound morpheme to word) condition where the stimulus Kanji used in the B-B condition were presented but required word-level responses which began with these Kanji morphemes. The results showed that, while the response time was not significantly different between the B-B and W-W conditions, it was significantly shorter in these conditions than in the B-W condition. It is concluded that single bound morpheme Kanji are generally named by directly accessing phonology rather than first accessing the lexicon.
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Asymmetries of reading and writing Kanji by Japanese children
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 1992Co-Authors: Jun YamadaAbstract:The present study aims at investigating the nature of Kanji learning by focusing on various types of relationships between reading (naming) and writing of isolated Kanji. Prominent asymmetries were found in normal children. There were a double asymmetrical type and two single asymmetrical types of Kanji. Parallel to these asymmetries, asymmetrical children were identified, i.e., some children could read Kanji they could not write and others could write Kanji they could not read. These asymmetries are considered to arise from linguistic properties of Kanji such as graphic complexity, multiple readings (inter-pretations), homophony, and the lack of phonological cues, as well as from children's strategies in processing Kanji. The question of why Kanji learning is difficult is also discussed.
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Why are kana words named faster than Kanji words
Brain and language, 1992Co-Authors: Jun YamadaAbstract:Feldman and Turvey (1980) found that colors conventionally written in Kanji (a logographic script) are named slower than are the unconventional kana (a syllabic script) transcriptions of the Kanji color words. This surprising finding was attributed to the closer relation of kana to phonology, which is consonant with the general dual-route theory. However, the present study has shown that Kanji numerals are named faster than are the corresponding kana numerals. A hypothesis involving selection difficulty inherent in most Kanji is presented to explain those apparently conflicting results. Some implications for further research on the Kanji versus kana issue are also discussed.
Katsuo Tamaoka - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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www.Kanjidatabase.com: a new interactive online database for psychological and linguistic research on Japanese Kanji and their compound words
Psychological Research, 2017Co-Authors: Katsuo Tamaoka, Shogo Makioka, Sander Sanders, Rinus G. VerdonschotAbstract:Most experimental research making use of the Japanese language has involved the 1945 officially standardized Kanji (Japanese logographic characters) in the Jōyō Kanji list (originally announced by the Japanese government in 1981). However, this list was extensively modified in 2010: five Kanji were removed and 196 Kanji were added; the latest revision of the list now has a total of 2136 Kanji. Using an up-to-date corpus consisting of 11 years' worth of articles printed in the Mainichi Newspaper (2000-2010), we have constructed two novel databases that can be used in psychological research using the Japanese language: (1) a database containing a wide variety of properties on the latest 2136 Jōyō Kanji, and (2) a novel database containing 27,950 two-Kanji compound words (or jukugo). Based on these two databases, we have created an interactive website ( www.Kanjidatabase.com ) to retrieve and store linguistic information to be used in psychological and linguistic experiments. The present paper reports the most important characteristics for the new databases, as well as their value for experimental psychological and linguistic research
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The Effects of Visual Complexity for Japanese Kanji Processing with High and Low Frequencies.
Reading and Writing, 2012Co-Authors: Katsuo Tamaoka, Sachiko KiyamaAbstract:The present study investigated the effects of visual complexity for Kanji processing by selecting target Kanji from different stroke ranges of visually simple (2–6 strokes), medium (8–12 strokes), and complex (14–20 strokes) Kanji with high and low frequencies. A Kanji lexical decision task in Experiment 1 and a Kanji naming task in Experiment 2 were administered to native Japanese speakers. Results of both experiments showed that visual complexity inhibited the processing of low-frequency Kanji, whereas such consistent, inhibitory effects of visual complexity were not observed in the processing of high-frequency Kanji. Kanji with medium complexity were processed faster than simple and complex Kanji in high frequency.
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Homophonic and semantic priming of Japanese Kanji words: A time course study
Psychonomic bulletin & review, 2007Co-Authors: Hsin-chin Chen, Katsuo Tamaoka, Takashi Yamauchi, Jyotsna VaidAbstract:In an examination of the time course of activation of phonological and semantic information in processing Kanji script, two lexical decision experiments were conducted with native readers of Japanese. Kanji targets were preceded at short (85-msec) and long (150-msec) intervals by homophonic, semantically related, or unrelated primes presented in Kanji (Experiment 1) or by hiragana transcriptions of the Kanji primes (Experiment 2). When primes were in Kanji, semantic relatedness facilitated Kanji target recognition at both intervals but homophonic relatedness did not. When primes were in hiragana, Kanji target recognition was facilitated by homophonic relatedness at both intervals and by semantic relatedness only at the longer interval. The absence of homophonic priming of Kanji targets by Kanji primes challenges the universal phonology principle’s claim that phonology is central to accessing meaning from print. The stimuli used in the present study may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.
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The Effect of Morphemic Homophony on the Processing of Japanese Two-Kanji Compound Words
Reading and Writing, 2005Co-Authors: Katsuo TamaokaAbstract:Two experiments investigated the effect of Kanji morphemic homophony on lexical decision and naming. Effects were examined from both the left-hand and right-hand positions of Japanese two-Kanji compound words. The number of homophones affected the processing of compound words in the same way for both tasks. For left-hand Kanji, fewer morphemic homophones led to faster lexical decision and whole-word naming. For right-hand Kanji, the number of morphemic homophones did not affect either lexical decision or naming. This effect of homophonic density suggested that, when a Kanji-compound word is to be processed, phonological information of its Kanji constituents is automatically activated and reverberates back to generate a series of orthographic representations of Kanji morphemic homophones, but not in a completely parallel fashion.
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Phonological involvement in the processing of Japanese at the lexical and sentence levels
Reading and Writing, 2002Co-Authors: Aiko Morita, Katsuo TamaokaAbstract:The present study examined whether Japanesereaders activate phonological information whenreading Kanji compound words and sentences andif so, how they do it. Experiment 1 usedtwo-Kanji compound words in a lexical decisiontask to study phonological processing at thelexical level. When nonwords werepseudo-homophones (/roR hi/ in placeof the real word /roR hi/), reactiontimes were longer and more errors occurred thanwith nonwords in the control group(/saku hi/). Experiment 2required participants to detect misspellings(i.e., incorrect Kanji combinations) oftwo-Kanji compound stimuli embedded insentences. In the detection task of misspelledKanji, no homophonic effect was apparent. Experiment 3 used a semantic decision task. Included in this task were semantically similarbut incorrect Kanji compound words used asfillers in sentences (e.g.,meaning `The building you can see over there was facilitated by my friend' instead of designed ) as well as the sentences used inExperiment 2. Results from Experiment 3indicated that participants could reject asentence as incorrect more quickly whenpseudo-homophones were embedded in thesentences rather than nonwords. These resultssuggest that readers activate phonologicalinformation of two-Kanji compound words whenreading for comprehension but not for simpleproofreading.
Atsushi Yamadori - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Kanji-predominant Alexia in Advanced Alzheimer's Disease
Acta neurologica Scandinavica, 2009Co-Authors: K. Nakamura, Kenichi Meguro, Hideki Yamazaki, Junichi Ishizaki, Hidemitsu Saito, N. Saito, Masumi Shimada, Satoshi Yamaguchi, Youichi Shimada, Atsushi YamadoriAbstract:Objectives - Oral reading is preserved until the late stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However. it is unknown whether reading of Kanji and kana is differentially impaired in Japanese AD patients. The purpose of this study was to examine alexic pattern in AD as related to two script systems. Material and methods - In 18 severe AD patients. reading performance was compared among kana characters, monographic Kanji words, and kana-transcribed words. Auditory comprehension was also examined. Results - With increased severity of dementia. Kanji reading was clearly more impaired than kana reading, which was relatively unaffected. Graphic complexity and frequency of the Kanji influenced the performance variously among the patients Dissociation between Kanji reading and comprehension was also noted. Conclusion - As a result of multiple cognitive deficits, Kanji reading is more impaired than kana reading in AD, but the difference is apparent only in the very late stage. Our findings suggest that Kanji can be read correctly without meaning.
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Anomic alexia of Kanji in a patient with anomic aphasia.
Cortex, 2008Co-Authors: Rie Yamawaki, Kyoko Suzuki, Kazuyo Tanji, Toshikatsu Fujii, Keiko Endo, Kenichi Meguro, Atsushi YamadoriAbstract:The ability to read aloud Kanji (logogram) words and to comprehend their meaning was systematically examined to clarify the underlying mechanism of Kanji alexia in a patient with anomic aphasia. Confrontation naming, reading aloud and reading comprehension tasks were performed using 110 words from 11 semantic categories written in Kanji or kana. Performance in oral reading of Kanji words was significantly worse than oral reading of the same words transcribed into kana words. In addition, for Kanji words reading aloud was much worse than reading comprehension. Oral reading of Kanji words had a significant correlation with naming pictures corresponding to the words, but no correlation with comprehension of Kanji words. Qualitative analyses demonstrated that errors in oral reading and naming tasks had many features in common. Our results indicated that some common mechanisms underlie both naming and oral reading of Kanji words. We propose calling this type of alexia "anomic alexia of Kanji", which should be distinguished from Kanji alexia with difficulty in both reading aloud and comprehension. Lesions in our patient were located in the middle part of the left middle temporal gyrus and its subcortical area, which could be important for access to the phonological lexicon from semantics.
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Preserved ability to read aloud Kanji idioms in left handed alexia
No to shinkei = Brain and nerve, 2004Co-Authors: Taemi Suzuki, Kyoko Suzuki, Keiko Endo, Atsushi Yamadori, Osamu Iizuka, Eturou MoriAbstract:We report a 69-year-old left-handed man, who developed alexia after a right medial occipito-temporal lobe infarction. On admission to the rehabilitation department two months after the onset, neurological examination showed left hemianopia, left hemiparesis, decreased deep sensation on the left side, and alexia. A brain MRI demonstrated infarcts in the right medial occipito-temporal lobe and the splenium of the corpus callosum. Detailed neuropsychological examination was performed two months after the onset. The patient was alert and cooperative. His speech was fluent with some word-finding difficulty. Comprehension for spoken materials, repetition, and naming abilities were all preserved. Systematic examination for reading revealed that reading aloud was disturbed in both Kanji and kana words. Reading comprehension was significantly better for Kanji words than kana words. First, we examined the effects of number of characters in a word. The number of characters in a word didn't affect his reading performance. Second, his performance on reading aloud of usual Kanji words was compared with that of Kanji words representing idioms. A Kanji idiom is different from usual Kanji words, in which pronunciation of each character is selected from several options. Reading aloud Kanji idioms was significantly better than usual Kanji words. In addition, reaction time to complete reading a word was much shorter for Kanji idioms than usual Kanji. An analysis of qualitative features of errors revealed that most errors in Kanji idiom reading were semantically similar to the correct answers, while many errors in usual Kanji word reading were classified into "don't know" responses. These findings suggested that a Kanji idiom was tightly connected to its pronunciation, which resulted in his much better performance for Kanji idiom reading. Overlearning of a unique relationship between a Kanji idiom and its pronunciation might modify neuronal organization for reading.
Yasuhisa Sakurai - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Kanji morphogram and kana phonogram problem in japanese alexia and agraphia
Frontiers of neurology and neuroscience, 2019Co-Authors: Yasuhisa SakuraiAbstract:: The Kanji and kana (or Kanji vs. kana) problem in the Japanese language denotes the dissociation between Kanji (morphograms) and kana (phonograms) in reading/comprehension and writing. Since paragraphia of kana in a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was first reported in 1893, Kanji-kana dissociation has been the central topic in Japanese aphasiology. Recent advancements in lesion-to-symptom analyses and functional imaging studies have identified some areas whose damage causes dissociative disturbances of reading or writing between Kanji and kana. That is, (1) angular alexia with agraphia causes Kanji agraphia; alexia of kana with an angular gyrus lesion is the result of a damage to the middle occipital gyrus; (2) alexia with agraphia for Kanji is caused by a posterior inferior temporal cortex (mid-fusiform/inferior temporal gyri; visual word form area) lesion, whereas pure agraphia for Kanji is caused by a posterior middle temporal gyrus lesion; and (3) pure alexia, particularly for Kanji, results from a mid-fusiform gyrus lesion (Brodmann's Area [BA] 37), whereas pure alexia for kana results from a posterior fusiform/inferior occipital gyri lesion (BA 18/19).
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agraphia for Kanji resulting from a left posterior middle temporal gyrus lesion
Behavioural Neurology, 2008Co-Authors: Yasuhisa Sakurai, Imari Mimura, Toru MannenAbstract:Objective: To clarify whether agraphia or alexia occurs in lesions of the left posterior middle temporal gyrus. Methods: We assessed the reading and writing abilities of two patients with this lesion using Kanji (Japanese morphograms) and kana (Japanese syllabograms). Results: Patient 1 first presented with pure alexia more impaired for kana after an infarction in the left middle and inferior occipital gyri and right basal occipital cortex, and after a second infarction in the left posterior middle temporal gyrus adjoining the first lesion he showed alexia with agraphia for Kanji and worsened alexia for kana; Kanji alexia recovered over the following six to 10 months. Patient 2 presented with alexia with agraphia for Kanji following a hemorrhage in the left posterior middle and inferior temporal gyri, which resolved to agraphia for Kanji at two months after onset. Kana nonword reading was also slightly impaired, but became normal by six months post-onset. In both patients, Kanji agraphia was mostly due to impaired character recall. Conclusion: The present patients demonstrate that damage to the left posterior middle temporal gyrus alone can cause agraphia for Kanji. If the adjacent mid fusiform/inferior temporal gyri (Area 37) are spared, the Kanji alexia is transient.
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Alexia caused by a fusiform or posterior inferior temporal lesion.
Journal of the Neurological Sciences, 2000Co-Authors: Yasuhisa Sakurai, Sosuke Takeuchi, Toshihiro Takada, Emiko Horiuchi, Hirofumi Nakase, Manabu SakutaAbstract:Abstract We evaluated the alexia and agraphia of three patients with different lesions using Japanese Kanji (morphograms) and kana (phonograms) and made a lesion-to-symptom analysis. Patient 1 (pure alexia for both Kanji and kana and minor agraphia for Kanji after a fusiform lesion) made more paragraphic errors for Kanji, whereas patient 2 (alexia with agraphia for Kanji after a posterior inferior temporal lesion) showed severe reading and writing disturbances and more agraphic errors for Kanji. Brodmann Area 37 was affected in both patients, but in patient 2 the lesion was located lateral to that in patient 1. Patient 3 showed agraphia without alexia after restricted lesion to the angular gyrus. We believe that pure alexia (patient 1) results from a disconnection between the medial fusiform gyrus and posterior inferior temporal area (the lateral fusiform and inferior temporal gyri), whereas alexia with agraphia for Kanji (patient 2), corresponding to lexical agraphia in Western countries, results from damage to the posterior inferior temporal area, in which whole-word images of words are thought to be stored. Furthermore, restricted lesion in the angular gyrus (patient 3) does not produce alexia; the alexic symptom of “angular” alexia with agraphia may be the result of damage to the adjacent lateral occipital gyri.
Manabu Sakuta - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Alexia caused by a fusiform or posterior inferior temporal lesion.
Journal of the Neurological Sciences, 2000Co-Authors: Yasuhisa Sakurai, Sosuke Takeuchi, Toshihiro Takada, Emiko Horiuchi, Hirofumi Nakase, Manabu SakutaAbstract:Abstract We evaluated the alexia and agraphia of three patients with different lesions using Japanese Kanji (morphograms) and kana (phonograms) and made a lesion-to-symptom analysis. Patient 1 (pure alexia for both Kanji and kana and minor agraphia for Kanji after a fusiform lesion) made more paragraphic errors for Kanji, whereas patient 2 (alexia with agraphia for Kanji after a posterior inferior temporal lesion) showed severe reading and writing disturbances and more agraphic errors for Kanji. Brodmann Area 37 was affected in both patients, but in patient 2 the lesion was located lateral to that in patient 1. Patient 3 showed agraphia without alexia after restricted lesion to the angular gyrus. We believe that pure alexia (patient 1) results from a disconnection between the medial fusiform gyrus and posterior inferior temporal area (the lateral fusiform and inferior temporal gyri), whereas alexia with agraphia for Kanji (patient 2), corresponding to lexical agraphia in Western countries, results from damage to the posterior inferior temporal area, in which whole-word images of words are thought to be stored. Furthermore, restricted lesion in the angular gyrus (patient 3) does not produce alexia; the alexic symptom of “angular” alexia with agraphia may be the result of damage to the adjacent lateral occipital gyri.
