Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Waseda University, 1-24-1 Toyama, Shinjuku-Ku, Tokyo 162-8644, Japan.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2013 Mar;39(2):529-51. doi: 10.1037/a0029122. Epub 2012 Aug 20.
Studies using the lexical decision task with English stimuli have demonstrated that homophones are responded to more slowly than nonhomophonic controls. In contrast, several studies using Chinese stimuli have shown that homophones are responded to more rapidly than nonhomophonic controls. In an attempt to better understand the impact of homophony, we investigated homophone effects for Japanese kanji words in a lexical decision task. The results indicated that, whereas a processing disadvantage emerged for homophones when they have only a single homophonic mate (as in the English experiments), a processing advantage occurred for homophones when they have multiple homophonic mates (as in the Chinese experiments). On the basis of these results, we discuss the nature of the processes that may be responsible for producing the processing advantages and disadvantages for homophones.
使用英语刺激物的词汇判断任务研究表明，同音字比非同音字控制项反应更慢。相比之下，使用中文刺激物的几项研究表明，同音字比非同音字控制项反应更快。为了更好地理解同音字的影响，我们在词汇判断任务中研究了日语汉字的同音字效应。结果表明，当同音字只有一个同音伙伴时（就像在英语实验中一样），会出现处理劣势，而当同音字有多个同音伙伴时（就像在中文实验中一样），会出现处理优势。基于这些结果，我们讨论了可能导致同音字处理优势和劣势的过程的性质。
