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