Right hemisphere advantage in lexical decision with two-character Chinese words.

It has been suggested that the right hemisphere advantage reported in the literature for single Chinese or kanji characters is the result of perceptual factors rather than unique linguistic features of the orthography. However, no similar right hemisphere advantage for two-character words has ever been found. This study reports on a right hemisphere advantage for high stroke number low frequency two-character Chinese words with short exposure time and low luminance. While there is support for the perceptual-factors explanation for some findings of right hemisphere advantage for Chinese, it is suggested that linguistic factors can still play a part.