Effects of orthographic-phonological consistency and on/kun-readings in the naming of Japanese kanji words

Abstract

In order to examine whether naming performance for Japanese kanji words is determined by the degree of orthographic–phonological consistency at the kanji character level or by the type of readings for the constituent kanji characters (on readings versus kun readings), naming performance was compared for on-reading and kun-reading two-character kanji words with matched orthographic–phonological consistencies in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, naming performance was compared for kun-reading single-character kanji words with higher and lower on-reading ratios. In Experiment 1, naming performance was comparable for the on-reading and kun-reading words. In Experiment 2, naming responses were faster for kanji characters with lower on-reading ratios than for those with higher on-reading ratios. These results clearly suggested that naming performance for kanji words is modulated by the degree of orthographic–phonological consistency but not by the type of readings possessed by the constituent kanji characters.View full abstract