Tong Xiuhong, Lo Jason Chor Ming, McBride Catherine, Ho Connie Suk-Han, Waye Mary Miu Yee, Chung Kevin Kien Hoa, Wong Simpson Wai Lap, Chow Bonnie Wing-Yin
Institute of Psychological Sciences, Zhejiang Key Laboratory for Research in Assessment of Cognitive Impairments, and Center for Cognition and Brain Disorders, Hangzhou Normal University, China.
Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong.
Neuropsychologia. 2016 Oct;91:109-119. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.08.006. Epub 2016 Aug 6.
Visual expertise in distinguishing words from objects and word-like stimuli is a fundamental skill that is important for children to become proficient readers. This expertise can be indexed by the N1 component of ERPs at the neural level. However, the nature of N1 tuning for print is controversial in terms of onset of the latency, lateralization and the neural mechanism of the N1. This study aimed to investigate whether two groups of Chinese children could discriminate characters/character-like stimuli from visual controls (i.e., coarse N1 tuning) and distinguish characters from character-like stimuli (i.e., fine N1 tuning). We also explored the cognitive-linguistic correlates of N1 tuning. Seventeen children in the younger group (M=7.7 years) and 13 in the older group (M=9.4 years) were all required to finish a character decision task with character, pseudocharacter, noncharacter, and stroke combination conditions using ERP testing. Both the pseudocharacters and noncharacters were unpronounceable, and the main difference between the two conditions was in orthographic presentation (i.e., radical position). Children were also administered measures of reading fluency, reading accuracy, RAN, phonological skill and vocabulary knowledge. ERP results showed that a significantly larger N1 was observed in the characters, pseudocharacters, and noncharacters as compared to the stroke combinations in both groups. The N1 for characters and pseudocharacters was also significantly larger than that for noncharacters in both groups. Both coarse and fine N1s were larger for younger children than for older children, and the N1 was bilateral in younger children, but left lateralized in older children. Correlational analyses showed that the coarse N1 tuning of real characters versus visual controls was moderately correlated with reading fluency and accuracy but not RAN, phonology, or vocabulary. Taken together, our study suggests that both coarse and fine N1 tuning occurs in both younger and older children, when performing character decisions. Under such task demands, orthography, rather than phonology or semantics, seems to be the driver of coarse N1 tuning for print in Chinese children.
从物体和类似单词的刺激中区分单词的视觉专长是一项基本技能，对儿童成为熟练读者很重要。这种专长在神经层面上可以通过事件相关电位（ERP）的N1成分来衡量。然而，N1对印刷体的调谐性质在潜伏期起始、偏侧化以及N1的神经机制方面存在争议。本研究旨在调查两组中国儿童是否能够从视觉对照中区分汉字/类汉字刺激（即粗略的N1调谐），并从类汉字刺激中区分汉字（即精细的N1调谐）。我们还探讨了N1调谐的认知语言相关性。较小组的17名儿童（平均年龄7.7岁）和较大组的13名儿童（平均年龄9.4岁）都被要求使用ERP测试完成一个包含汉字、假字、非字和笔画组合条件的汉字判断任务。假字和非字都不可发音，这两种条件之间的主要区别在于正字法呈现（即部首位置）。儿童还接受了阅读流畅性、阅读准确性、快速自动命名（RAN）、语音技能和词汇知识的测试。ERP结果显示，与笔画组合相比，两组中汉字、假字和非字条件下观察到的N1都显著更大。两组中汉字和假字的N1也显著大于非字的N1。较年幼儿童的粗略和精细N1都比年龄较大儿童的大，并且较年幼儿童的N1是双侧的，而年龄较大儿童的N1是左侧偏侧化的。相关分析表明，真实汉字与视觉对照的粗略N1调谐与阅读流畅性和准确性中度相关，但与RAN、语音或词汇无关。综上所述，我们的研究表明，在进行汉字判断时，较年幼和年龄较大的儿童都会出现粗略和精细的N1调谐。在这种任务要求下，正字法而非语音或语义似乎是中国儿童印刷体粗略N1调谐的驱动因素。
