Empirical study of Kanji as archetypal images: understanding the collective unconscious as part of the Japanese language

Chinese characters originated as a semiotic system independent from spoken language and in the Japanese language they function non-phonetically with speakers exhibiting right-hemispheric advantage in their processing. We tested the hypothesis that Chinese characters are archetypal images and therefore part of our collective unconscious memory. Our study builds on the first empirical study of archetypal memory of Rosen et al. (1991) which demonstrated that archetypal symbols presented matched with their correct meaning were better learned and recalled. In a series of three experiments we used 40 Chinese characters instead of the archetypal symbols used by Rosen, et al. (1991). The results provided empirical evidence that Chinese characters matched with their correct meaning were significantly better recalled than the ones that were mismatched. Thus, we demonstrated that there appears to be unconscious knowledge of the meaning of the Chinese characters which was triggered as a result of priming when the characters were correctly matched with their meaning. On this basis, we suggest that Chinese characters exhibit the same cognitive qualities as archetypal symbols. Thus, in the Japanese language an archetypal image is integrated non-phonetically into the system of language and signifies the concept independent from the phonetic signifier and is equal to it.     

Letter names and phonological awareness help children to learn letter-sound relations

Two experimental training studies with Portuguese-speaking preschoolers in Brazil were conducted to investigate whether children benefit from letter name knowledge and phonological awareness in learning letter-sound relations. In Experiment 1, two groups of children were compared. The experimental group was taught the names of letters whose sounds occur either at the beginning (e.g., the letter /be/) or in the middle (e.g., the letter /‘eli/) of the letter name. The control group was taught the shapes of the letters but not their names. Then both groups were taught the sounds of the letters. Results showed an advantage for the experimental group, but only for beginning-sound letters. Experiment 2 investigated whether training in phonological awareness could boost the learning of letter sounds, particularly middle-sound letters. In addition to learning the names of beginning- and middle-sound letters, children in the experimental group were taught to categorize words according to rhyme and alliteration, whereas controls were taught to categorize the same words semantically. All children were then taught the sounds of the letters. Results showed that children who were given phonological awareness training found it easier to learn letter sounds than controls. This was true for both types of letters, but especially for middle-sound letters.     

Early differentiation between drawing and writing in Chinese children

Children under 3½ years of age or so are often thought to produce the same types of scribbles for writing and drawing. We tested this idea by asking Chinese 2- to 6-year-olds to write and draw four targets. In Study 1, Chinese adults judged the status of the productions as writings or drawings. The adults performed significantly above the level expected by chance even with the productions of 2- to 2½-year-olds. In Study 2, we examined specific characteristics of the children’s writings and drawings. Although the younger children’s scribbles bore little resemblance to the correct characters, they tended to be smaller, sparser, and more angular than their artwork, with less filling in. Differences were also found in paper use and implement use. Children did not appear to distinguish writing from drawing for their own names before they did so for other targets.     

The prevalence of mind-body dualism in early China

We present the first large-scale, quantitative examination of mind and body concepts in a set of historical sources by measuring the predictions of folk mind-body dualism against the surviving textual corpus of pre-Qin (pre-221 BCE) China. Our textual analysis found clear patterns in the historically evolving reference of the word xin (heart/heart-mind): It alone of the organs was regularly contrasted with the physical body, and during the Warring States period it became less associated with emotions and increasingly portrayed as the unique locus of "higher" cognitive abilities. We interpret this as a semantic shift toward a shared cognitive bias in response to a vast and rapid expansion of literacy. Our study helps test the proposed universality of folk dualism, adds a new quantitative approach to the methods used in the humanities, and opens up a new and valuable data source for cognitive scientists: the record of dead minds.     

词切分对日-汉双语者汉语阅读影响的眼动研究

以24名日-汉双语者为被试, 采用EyeLink2000眼动仪, 通过两个实验来探讨词切分对日-汉双语者汉语句子阅读的影响。实验一采用四种词切分方式：正常条件、词间空格条件、非词空格条件和字间空格条件。为了确保四种词切分条件下句子的空间分布一致, 实验二采用灰条标记作为字、词或非词的边界。结果发现：(1)在总体和局部分析中, 词间空格条件下平均注视时间显著少于正常条件; 非词空格和字间空格条件下的阅读时间更长、注视次数更多。(2)在总体分析中, 总句子阅读时间和总注视次数在正常条件和词间空格条件中差异不显著; 局部分析中, 词间空格条件比正常条件下的阅读时间更短、注视次数更少。表明日-汉双语者在阅读词间空格文本和正常文本一样容易; 词切分对日-汉双语者汉语阅读的词汇识别有促进作用; 在汉语阅读中, 词是重要的加工单位。     

Brain networks associated with sublexical properties of Chinese characters

Cognitive models of reading all assume some division of labor among processing pathways in mapping among print, sound and meaning. Many studies of the neural basis of reading have used task manipulations such as rhyme or synonym judgment to tap these processes independently. Here we take advantage of specific properties of the Chinese writing system to test how differential availability of sublexical information about sound and meaning, as well as the orthographic structure of characters, pseudo-characters and “artificial” control stimuli influence brain activation in the context of the same one-back task. Analyses combine a data-driven approach that identifies temporally coherent patterns of activity over the course of the entire experiment with hypothesis-testing based on the correlation of these patterns with predictors for different stimulus classes. The results reveal a large network of task-related activity. Both the extent of this network and activity in regions commonly observed in studies of Chinese reading are apparently related to task difficulty. Other regions, including temporo-parietal cortex, were sensitive to particular sublexical functional units in mapping among print, sound, and meaning.     

Dissociation and association of the embodied representation of tool-use verbs and hand verbs: An fMRI study

Embodied semantic theories suppose that representation of word meaning and actual sensory-motor processing are implemented in overlapping systems. According to this view, association and dissociation of different word meaning should correspond to dissociation and association of the described sensory-motor processing. Previous studies demonstrate that although tool-use actions and hand actions have overlapping neural substrates, tool-use actions show greater activations in frontal–parietal–temporal regions that are responsible for motor control and tool knowledge processing. In the present study, we examined the association and the dissociation of the semantic representation of tool-use verbs and hand action verbs. Chinese verbs describing tool-use or hand actions without tools were included, and a passive reading task was employed. All verb conditions showed common activations in areas of left middle frontal gyrus, left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 44/45) and left inferior parietal lobule relative to rest, and all conditions showed significant effects in premotor areas within the mask of hand motion effects. Contrasts between tool-use verbs and hand verbs demonstrated that tool verbs elicited stronger activity in left superior parietal lobule, left middle frontal gyrus and left posterior middle temporal gyrus. Additionally, psychophysiological interaction analyses demonstrated that tool verbs indicated greater connectivity among these regions. These results suggest that the brain regions involved in tool-use action processing also play more important roles in tool-use verb processing and that similar systems may be responsible for word meaning representation and actual sensory-motor processing.     

Neuroanatomical correlates of oral reading in acute left hemispheric stroke

Oral reading is a complex skill involving the interaction of orthographic, phonological, and semantic processes. Functional imaging studies with nonimpaired adult readers have identified a widely distributed network of frontal, inferior parietal, posterior temporal, and occipital brain regions involved in the task. However, while functional imaging can identify cortical regions engaged in the process under examination, it cannot identify those brain regions essential for the task. The current study aimed to identify those neuroanatomical regions critical for successful oral reading by examining the relationship between word and nonword oral reading deficits and areas of tissue dysfunction in acute stroke. We evaluated 91 patients with left hemisphere ischemic stroke with a test of oral word and nonword reading, and magnetic resonance diffusion-weighted and perfusion-weighted imaging, within 24-48 h of stroke onset. A voxel-wise statistical map showed that impairments in word and nonword reading were associated with a distributed network of brain regions, including the inferior and middle frontal gyri, the middle temporal gyrus, the supramarginal and angular gyri, and the middle occipital gyrus. In addition, lesions associated with word deficits were found to be distributed more frontally, while nonword deficits were associated with lesions distributed more posteriorly.     

Sublexical ambiguity effect in reading Chinese disyllabic compounds

For Chinese compounds, neighbors can share either both orthographic forms and meanings, or orthographic forms only. In this study, central presentation and visual half-field (VF) presentation methods were used in conjunction with ERP measures to investigate how readers solve the sublexical semantic ambiguity of the first constituent character in reading a disyllabic compound. The sublexical ambiguity of the first character was manipulated while the orthographic neighborhood sizes of the first and second character (NS1, NS2) were controlled. Subjective rating of number of meanings corresponding to a character was used as an index of sublexical ambiguity. Results showed that low sublexical ambiguity words elicited a more negative N400 than high sublexical ambiguity words when words were centrally presented. Similar patterns were found when words were presented to the left VF. Interestingly, different patterns were observed for pseudowords. With left VF presentation, high sublexical ambiguity psudowords showed a more negative N400 than low sublexical ambiguity pseudowords. In contrast, with right VF presentation, low sublexical ambiguity pseudowords showed a more negative N400 than high sublexical ambiguity pseudowords. These findings indicate that a level of morphological representation between form and meaning needs to be established and refined in Chinese. In addition, hemispheric asymmetries in the use of word information in ambiguity resolution should be taken into account, even at sublexical level.     

告别中医中药

从文化进步的角度看,中医中药没有寻求到自我进步的道路,约束了人们对病理和生理的理解;从尊重科学的角度看,中医中药既缺乏经验基础又缺乏逻辑基础;从维护生物多样性的角度看,中医中药在倡导不科学施治的同时,破坏了生物的多样性;从人道主义的角度看,中医中药蕴含着装腔作势的医理解释,推行毒物、异物、污物入药。因此,我们有充分的理由告别中医中药。