SCRIPT FAMILIARITY AND PROCESSING UNIT IN LEXICAL DECISION WITH JAPANESE KANA WORDS

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of script familiarity in the lexical decision task with Japanese Hiragana and Katakana words. Words were printed in both familiar and unfamiliar script, and word length was varied from three to five letters. In Experiment 1. subjects were 24 undergraduate students, and effect of script familiarity and word length on reaction times was investigated. In Experiment 2, subjects were 24 undergraduate students. In this study, subjects were instructed to read letters from right to left. The results of two experiments showed that the reaction times to words printed in unfamiliar script were increased as word length increased. But the reaction times to words printed in familiar script were not affected by word length. When subjects read the letters from right to left, that was quite unusual condition, the reaction times to words printed in both familiar and unfamiliar script were increased with their word length. These results suggest that visually familiar letter sequence should be considered as one unit to read.