Do compound radicals play a role in Chinese character recognition?

Abstract

A lexical decision experiment was performed with a masked primed paradigm. Each character, which was either simple radical or compound radical, was pre-exposed by a complex prime character containing a simple radical or compound radical. Undergraduates (N = 82) participated in the task at either short or long prime duration. Facilitation was observed when simple radicals were preceded by simple radical primes and when compound radicals were preceded by compound radical primes. Non-significant priming effect was observed when compound radicals were preceded by simple radical primes across short and long prime duration. The existence of compound radical representation was not confirmed probably because the range of prime duration (16-ms) used was too short. Results were interpreted with an interactive-activation framework.