字頻及作業類型對漢字語音一致性效果的影響

Effects of Frequency and Task Type on the Phonetic Consistency of Chinese Characters

Glushko（1979）提出語音一致性效果的觀點後，此效果就一直被用來探討語音訊息在中文單字辨識歷程中的作用機制。然而，由於漢字空間結構的關係，造成漢字語音一致性的操弄容易跟鄰群數量的因素混淆。同時，採用Jared（1997）所提議的符號頻率（token frequency）為基礎的方式計算一致性，也會因為目標字頻的高低而對一致性分布情況造成偏差性的影響。本研究透過比較單字唸名作業（naming task）和單字判斷作業（lexical decision task, LDT）兩種實驗作業，再次檢視漢字辨識歷程的一致性效果，並同時操弄字頻及一致性兩項受試者內因素，形成一個三因子的混合設計實驗。結果發現在平衡各種情境的同聲旁字數量後，作業、字頻和一致性間出現明顯的三階交互作用。在單字唸名作業的低頻字情境下會產生穩定語音一致性促進效果，但在高頻字情境下，語音一致性卻沒發現任何促進效果。然而，在單字判斷作業的高頻字情境下並未發現一致性促進效果，反倒是在低頻字情境下發現了之前研究都未報告過的一致性抑制效果，此結果可能支持漢字聲旁的字形訊息在語音一致性的認知歷程中也會產生一定程度的影響。由本研究的結果推論，漢字辨識歷程中的語音一致性，僅在當受試者面對不熟悉的漢字且作業需要產生語音反應的情況下，才會產生明顯的助益，在不要求受試者產生語音反應的作業下，漢字一致性並不會特別產生作用，有時可能還會造成受試者在辨識漢字上產生困難，上述的結果可以使用鄰群效果的作用加以推論，說明字形相似字群的額外涉入歷程。

The phonetic consistency effect, proposed by Glushko (1979), has been applied to study the role of phonological information in the Chinese character recognition process. However, the orthographic structure of Chinese characters complicates efforts to manipulate phonological consistency, often leading to confusion with the neighborhood size effect. Consistency data based on token frequency, which was proposed by Jared (1997), might also be biased because of the level of target character frequency. This study investigated the consistency effect of Chinese characters by using the naming task and lexical decision task. Two within-subject factors, namely character frequency and consistency, were simultaneously manipulated. The results indicated a significant three-way interaction between task, character frequency, and consistency after balancing the number of characters with a given phonetic radical. The naming results indicated phonetic consistency facilitation in low-frequency characters but not in high-frequency characters. Similarly, the lexical decision results indicated phonetic consistency inhibition in low-frequency characters but not in high-frequency characters. These results suggest that the orthographic information of phonetic radicals influence the phonological consistency process. Facilitation through a given phonetic radical only occurred during the pronunciation of unfamiliar characters. In tasks where participants were not required to generate phonological information, Chinese character consistency did not provide additional benefits and sometimes hindered Chinese character recognition. These findings were inferred from the role of neighborhood effects.