Open AccessSemantic access in number processing investigated with Japanese Kanji and Kana numerals
Author(s) -
SAKUMA NAOTO,
GORYO KEN,
KIMURA EIJI
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
japanese psychological research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.392
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5884
pISSN - 0021-5368
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5884.2011.00477.x
Subject(s) - kana , kanji , arabic numerals , numeral system , computer science , natural language processing , word (group theory) , artificial intelligence , task (project management) , speech recognition , semantic memory , arithmetic , psychology , linguistics , chinese characters , cognition , mathematics , philosophy , management , neuroscience , economics
In number processing, semantic representations are efficiently activated. These representations frequently affect task performance, as demonstrated by semantic effects such as the distance effect (longer reaction times to closer numerical pairs in comparison tasks). The objective of this study was to investigate whether efficient semantic access is a distinctive feature of number processing using the Japanese language. Japanese was chosen to investigate possible effects of ideographic processing and word frequency: Kanji numerals in Japanese are ideograms and are used frequently, while Kana numerals are phonograms and are used infrequently. The results confirmed a distance effect in the numerical and physical matching tasks with both Arabic and Kanji numerals regardless of notation or task (Experiment 1). However, the effect was not observed with the Kana pairs (Experiment 2), thereby suggesting that semantic access is not always efficient in number processing. The results can be explained coherently within a general framework of word recognition by assuming that both the type of character and the word frequency play a critical role in determining the efficiency of semantic access.