The Interaction Between Regularity And Consistency: The Additional Activation Of Family Regularity On The Phonetic Radical

In Chinese characters,the majority of numbers are phonograms,accounting for81% of the total number of characters.Phonograms consist of a phonetic radical and a semantic radical,with the former indicating the pronunciation and the latter indicating the meaning.Many studies have shown that phonetic radicals are in a more advantageous position than semantic radicals in Chinese character processing.Therefore,the study of phonetic radicals is an indispensable part of researching phonograms.Currently,research on phonetic radicals mainly focuses on three aspects: the phonetic radical family effect,the regularity effect,and the consistency effect.The phonetic radical family refers to a collection of Chinese characters that share the same phonetic radical.For example,"柜,炬,矩,距,钜" all contain the phonetic radical "巨," forming a phonetic radical family.Depending on the number of members in the family,the phonetic radical family can be categorized as large or small.In Chinese,the phonetic radical family effect is mainly shown as an inhibitory effect of large phonetic radical families.The regularity effect measures whether the phonetic radical and the character have the same pronunciation.If they do,it is considered a regular character(such as "矩" or "炬"),while if they don’t,it is considered an irregular character(such as "柜").Previous research has shown that when the phonetic radical and low-frequency characters have the same pronunciation,it can facilitate character processing.The consistency effect measures the proportion of characters in the phonetic radical family that share the same pronunciation with the target character.If this proportion is above 50%,the target character is considered a high-consistency character.For example,"柜" is a low-consistency character,while "矩" is a highconsistency characterAccording to the interactive activation model of Chinese character processing,Chinese character processing is divided into three levels: stroke layer,sub lexical layer,and lexical layer.The regular effect describes the impact of the sub lexical layer on whole word processing,while the family effect and consistency effect describe the impact of the lexical layer on whole word processing.Currently,research on the impact of the sub lexical layer on whole word processing is mainly focused on the behavioral level,with less research on EEG.However,there are also inconsistencies in the EEG research on consistency.Some people believe that high consistency increases P200,Others believe that high consistency reduces P200.This may be since regularity and consistency have not been considered together,or it may be due to the ineffective activation of phonetic radical sounds,resulting in the absence of regularity effects.And in the theory of interactive activation,there is a two-way connection between the sub lexical layer and the lexical layer that can interact with each other.However,previous studies have mainly focused on the activation of the sub lexical layer on the lexical level,with little impact on discovering the impact of the lexical layer on the sub lexical layer.In Experiment 1 of this study,a 2(regularity: regular word,irregular word)×2(consistency: high consistency,low consistency)within-subject experimental design was adopted,and a speech judgment task was used to study the interaction between regularity and consistency under the condition of high para-vocal frequency.The experimental results show that there is a significant interaction between consistency and regularity on P200.Further simple analysis results show that regular words cause smaller P200 than irregular words under high consistency condition,high consistency words cause smaller P200 than low consistency words under regular word,and high consistency words cause larger P200 than low consistency words under irregular condition.All of these are aimed at the initiation of the whole word,reflecting the influence of activation at the lexical level on the whole word processing.The phonetic radical in the sub lexical layer will also produce different effects on the whole word processing than the lexical layer.In order to explain the effect in experiment 1,it is believed that the Chinese characters with high consistency have a large number of homophone family members at the lexical level,which provides additional phonetic activation for the whole word,so the high consistency will lead to the increase of P200,while the effect at the sub lexical level is opposite to the consistency,and the P200 will decrease when the next sound is the same as the whole word.P200 will increase when the phonetic radical is different from the whole word pronunciation.But this hypothesis does not explain the results of experiment1.For example,under the regular condition,the highly consistent words caused a smaller P200 than the inconsistent words,contrary to our hypothesis,then is there any other factor that caused the above experimental results?After further analysis of the material from Experiment 1,we found that there were two different types of characters in irregular Chinese characters with low consistency.For example,for the low-consistency irregular Chinese character "猜",its family members include "请,清,情,晴,氰,倩,蜻,精,靖".Most of the family members in this family pronounce "qing" with the same pronunciation as that of the phonetic radical.We name this family as the regular family,while for the lowconsistency irregular Chinese character "狙",its family members are 沮,咀,蛆,租,组,阻,诅,粗" Most of the family members in this family have different sounds from the phonetic radical.we give this type of consonant family the name irregular family.Does the homophone between most family members and phonetic radical voice have an effect on the side of the sub lexical layer? In experiment 2,we investigated this problemIn experiment 2,a single-factor within-subjects design was adopted under the condition of low consistency irregular characters,and the independent variable was family regularity(regular family,irregular family).The experimental paradigm was the same as experiment 1.It was found that the regular family caused smaller N170 than the irregular family on the N170 component,the regular family caused larger P200 amplitude than the irregular family on the P200,In the regular family,most family members have a homophone with the phonetic radical,which enhances the activation of the phonetic radical.For irregular phonetic radical pronunciation,which is different from the whole word,the enhancement of the activation of the phonetic radical leads to the enhanced competition between the phonetic radical and the whole word,resulting in a larger P200.This is in line with our results in experiment 1,P200 will decrease when the phonetic radical is homophone with the whole word,while P200 will increase when the phonetic radical is different from the whole word.Introducing the conclusion of the regular family in Experiment 2 into the material in Experiment 1,it is easy to find that for highly consistent regular words,they must belong to the regular family,because for highly consistent regular words,most of the members of the phonetic radical family share the same sound as it,and it is also homophonic with the phonetic radical.From this,it can be inferred that highly consistent regular words must belong to the regular family,and similarly,low consistent regular words must also belong to the irregular family.In the regular family,due to the homonym with most family members,the phonetic radical is activated at the lexical level,which makes the phonetic radical get additional activation.This extra activation makes the effect of phonetic radical further manifested in the whole word processing,and the non-lexicographical channel is activated in the processing,so that the high consistency regular word causes a smaller P200 than the low consistency regular word.Combining the two experiments,we can conclude that the interaction effect of regularity and consistency appears under the condition that the phonetic radical frequency is high frequency and the whole word frequency is low frequency.P200,as an indicator of early processing of Chinese characters,has different effects on phonological activation at the lexical level and the sub lexical level.Phonological activation at the lexical level increases P200,while it decreases P200 at the sub lexical level,which also indicates that there are different brain mechanisms to produce regularity effect and consistency effect.Among the members of the regular family,the family members that are homophone with the phonetic radical produce additional activation of the phonetic radical pronunciation,and the nonlexical pathway plays a leading role in the processing of Chinese characters,which inhibits the consistency effect on the mental dictionary channel.