Alternating-script priming in Japanese: Are Katakana and Hiragana characters interchangeable?

Abstract

Models of written word recognition in languages using the Roman alphabet assume that a word's visual form is quickly mapped onto abstract units. This proposal is consistent with the finding that masked priming effects are of similar magnitude from lowercase, uppercase, and alternating-case primes (e.g., beard-BEARD, BEARD-BEARD, and BeArD-BEARD). We examined whether this claim can be readily generalized to the 2 syllabaries of Japanese Kana (Hiragana and Katakana). The specific rationale was that if the visual form of Kana words is lost early in the lexical access process, alternating-script repetition primes should be as effective as same-script repetition primes at activating a target word. Results showed that alternating-script repetition primes were less effective at activating lexical representations of Katakana words than same-script repetition primes-indeed, they were no more effective than partial primes that contained only the Katakana characters from the alternating-script primes. Thus, the idiosyncrasies of each writing system do appear to shape the pathways to lexical access. (PsycINFO Database Record

Allograph priming is based on abstract letter identities: Evidence from Japanese kana.

“…Also using the masked priming lexical-decision task, Perea, Nakayama, and Lupker (2017) came to a very different conclusion from Pylkkänen and Okano (2010), that “in Japanese, abstract units are shared at the lexical level, but not at the character level” (p. 1144). In their study, the identity primes containing alternating hiragana and katakana (e.g., レすトらン- レストラン, “restaurant”) produced priming which was smaller (17 ms) than the identity prime containing all katakana (28 ms, e.g., レストラン - レストラン).…”

“…Pylkkänen & Okano, 2010). Based on this differential distribution of the kana scripts by word type, Pylkkänen and Okano (2010) assumed (wrongly, in our view) that hiragana and katakana belong to “different writing systems” (p.1), while Perea, Nakayama, and Lupker (2017) posited that “[..] these precise rules 2 of usage may hinder/prevent the development of abstract character-level representations” (p.1141). We will return to these studies in the Discussion, but for now, we point out that the use of hiragana and katakana to write different types of words does not provide a prima facie argument against a common abstract letter identity.…”

Evidence for cross-script abstract identities in learners of Japanese kana

“…Although the lexical decision task clarifies the role of kana script at the word level, it does not provide direct evidence for or against abstract identity representations at the single-character level (just as results in Roman script indicating that proper names are recognized more easily with the first letter capitalized do not negate strong evidence from multiple sources for abstract letter identities at the single-letter level). Thus, though Perea et al's (2017) results are relevant to wordlevel processing in Japanese kana, their implications for single-character processing are unclear. For that, a paradigm would have to be used that involves the presentation only of single characters (cf.…”

“…Another recent finding concerning allographic variation at the word level has been used to argue against the presence of single-character abstract identities in Japanese kana. Perea, Nakayama, and Lupker (2017) conducted a masked-priming lexical decision task, with target words written in katakana (e.g., レストラン, meaning Brestaurant^) and phonologically identical primes written in katakana (e.g., レストラン) or in alternating hiragana and katakana (e.g., レすトらン). Responses to targets preceded by pure katakana primes were faster than to those preceded by alternating-kana primes.…”

“…Responses to targets preceded by pure katakana primes were faster than to those preceded by alternating-kana primes. Perea et al (2017) concluded that Bin Japanese, abstract units are shared at the lexical level, but not at the character level^(p. 1144). However, these results are not incompatible with abstract character identities.…”