Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1989.

Holistic processing and left-side bias are both behavioral markers of expert face recognition. In contrast, expertise in Chinese character recognition involves left-side bias but reduced holistic processing (Hsiao & Cottrell, 2009). Here I hypothesized that this reduction in holistic processing may be related to writing rather than reading experience. In Experiment 1, I tested Chinese literates who could read and write Chinese characters fluently (Writers), and Chinese literates who had limited writing practices and thus had reading performance far exceeding their writing ability (Limited-writers). I found that Writers perceived Chinese characters less holistically than Limited-writers. In contrast to what previous research suggested, reduction in holistic processing in Chinese readers depended on writing experience instead of reading performance. In addition, reading performance was affected by font familiarity and context for Limited-writers but not Writers. Writing experience seems to enhance analytic processing and awareness of orthographic components of Chinese characters, which may in turn facilitate reading in unfamiliar fonts. By contrast, both Writers and Limited-writers showed a similar level of left-side bias in processing symmetric Chinese characters, suggesting that left-side bias is a consistent expertise marker for orthographic processing uninfluenced by writing experience. In Experiment 2, I investigate the developmental trend of holistic processing in Chinese character recognition and its relationship with reading and writing abilities by testing Chinese children who were learning Chinese at a public elementary school in Hong Kong on these abilities. I found that the holistic processing effect of Chinese characters in children was reduced as they reached higher grades; this reduction was driven by enhanced Chinese literacy rather than age. In addition, I found that writing performance predicts reading performance through reduced holistic processing as a mediator. Overall, the results of this study suggest that writing hones analytic processing, which is essential for expert Chinese character recognition, and in turn facilitates learning to read in Chinese. This study is also the first to identify Limited-writers as a window onto basic processes of reading. / HKU 3 Minute Thesis Award, 2nd Runner-up (2012) / published_or_final_version / Psychology / Master / Master of Philosophy

Chinese characters are used by about one-fifth of the world population. Each character can generally be analyzed and represented at three orthographic levels including single stroke, component and whole character. Regardless of the number of strokes a Chinese character has, it always occupies a square area. Such special spatial layout leads to a great variation in stroke density, i.e., visual complexity, among Chinese characters. Here in this thesis, the effects of visual complexity on Chinese character recognition were examined to investigate the visual processing of Chinese characters in both central and peripheral vision. Empirical findings from four psychophysical studies will be reported. First, the efficiency of detecting and recognizing Chinese characters of different complexity levels was studied. Human recognition of a more complex Chinese character was found to be generally less efficient than that of a simpler one. The relationship between efficiency and complexity had a log-log slope of approximately -1, suggesting that the basic features for recognizing a single Chinese character might be less complex than the simplest object used, which is a single stroke. Analysis results of the detection and recognition efficiency were consistent with a two-stage processing model of Chinese character recognition—feature detection followed by feature integration. Results in peripheral vision suggested that the feature integration process was adversely influenced by internal crowding. Second, the spatial frequency characteristics of recognizing Chinese characters of different complexity levels were examined. The results showed that the peak tuning frequency for recognizing a more complex Chinese character was higher and the bandwidth of the spatial tuning functions was narrower than for recognizing a simpler character. In addition, the effects of size on such spatial frequency characteristics depended on the complexity level. The comparison of human performance against the corresponding performance of a CSF-limited ideal observer model implied that the processing mechanism of recognizing simple and complex characters was different. Moreover, similar results were observed among native Chinese and non-Chinese readers, suggesting that expertise might not influence front end processing properties such as the spatial frequency characteristics of Chinese character recognition. Third, the importance of utilizing spatial frequency information of different orientations (i.e., horizontal versus vertical) in Chinese character recognition was investigated. Results showed higher efficiency in utilizing vertical than horizontal stroke information for Chinese character recognition among native Chinese readers whereas non-Chinese readers used both vertical and horizontal stroke information similarly. Fourth, the effects of the target-flanker similarity in complexity on crowding in Chinese character recognition were examined. The results suggested that the behavior of feature integration process in peripheral vision might be consistent with summation theory, which stresses on the relationship between the processing capacity of neurons and the processing demand of stimuli. The “excessive feature integration explanation” of crowding was also discussed in the context of the current findings. Building on previous research in the literature, results from the four studies in this thesis were synthesized in a proposal of a visual information processing model for Chinese character recognition. / published_or_final_version / Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

In Aphrodite Unshamed: James Joyce's Romantic Aesthetics of Feminine Flow, I trace the influence of romanticism and anthropology on Joyce, and argue that he renews by classicalizing an ironic romantic genre also inspired by anthropology, the fairy tale arabesque. Created by the random cobbling together of fairytale types, plot elements, and set pieces, the arabesque's context was early anthropological work on folktales in Germany. I argue that, basing his fiction on this "nonsense" genre, Joyce mines the works of Homer, Shelley, Walter Pater, and Lucien Levy-Bruhl in order to promote--indeed, to narratively model--an abandonment of honor culture in favor of a neo-archaic culture of spiritualized sexual love. To do this, Joyce brings down to earth the airy Aphrodite of Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, and sexualizes the serpentine narrative trope Pater uses to aestheticize her power--both by chiasmatically structuring his fiction. Joyce envisions a world in which "cultural" men, because they sacralize and no longer shame female sexuality, participate in women's "primitive," i.e., not fully cultural, being. Indeed, I argue that, borrowing from Lucien Levy-Bruhl's conception of the mystical epistemologies of "primitives," Joyce viewed women as modern "primitives" capable of revitalizing overly intellectualized, alienated, and violent masculine Western culture. By creating recursive chiasmatic constructions of characters, images, and plot, Joyce creates layers of narrative infinity signs that body forth the unending "primitive" feminine rhythm that he makes the signature of his work. I argue that his work reveals that he viewed women as less than fully cultural, i.e., closer to rude animal life and the blunt forces of nature by virtue of sex, menstruation and child-bearing. He implicitly argues against the "new woman" and for women's continued "primitivity" in the service of his new, still male-produced, culture. His cooption of what he considers women's "primitive" essence is thus meant to be a source for cultural renewal for modern Westerners.

Playwriting theory has, from its beginning, been concerned with the search for the essential nature of dramatic writing. Early playwriting treatises (poetics) defined the essential aspects of drama as being the plot (creation of sequences of fictional events), the moral character of its heroes, the idea of enactment, or the rhetorical and lyrical qualities of the text. These categories were kept through later treatises with different emphasis being put on each category. An understanding of drama as a sequence of fictional events (plot) has been central in acting theory. Modern theories and techniques centred on Stanislavsky’s ideas rely heavily on rehearsal methods that carefully establish the sequence of actions of the characters in a play as a result of psychological motivations. This method was described by Stanislavsky in An Actor’s Work on a Role, published in 1938, and is known as the Method of Physical Actions. This thesis reassesses the definition of playwriting as consisting essentially in the creation of a plot populated by suitable characters. Rather than discussing playwriting theory in isolation it attempts a bridge between acting theory and playwriting theory by using the Method of Physical Actions as an equivalent to plot. Acting theory is thus considered as a theoretical justification for the centrality of plot. The method used is hermeneutic — a systematic interpretation of poetics, unveiling in almost an archaeological manner the relevance of the essential definitions of drama, such as character, source, genre, and language to the concept of plot. The chronological path of development of dramatic theories is shown to be gradual: from the strict obedience to the narrative line imposed by the mythic sources, in classical treatises; through to an interest in the lyrical expression of the predicament of specific characters, in neoclassical theory; to an awareness of specific social types in the eighteenth century; and, finally, to the conception of the plot as a product of the mental life of individual characters in modern theory.

published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Computer Science and Information Systems / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Computer Science / Master / Master of Philosophy