Department of Psychology and Psychological Assessment & Clinical Research Unit, The Education University of Hong Kong, 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong.
Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus, Pokfulam Road, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong.
Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2022 May 7;7(1):39. doi: 10.1186/s41235-022-00389-3.
Holistic processing has been identified as an expertise marker of face and object recognition. By contrast, reduced holistic processing is purportedly an expertise marker in recognising orthographic characters in Chinese. Does holistic processing increase or decrease in expertise development? Is orthographic recognition a domain-specific exception to all other kinds of recognition (e.g. face and objects)? In two studies, we examined the developmental trend of holistic processing in Chinese character recognition in Chinese and non-Chinese children, and its relationship with literacy abilities: Chinese first graders-with emergent Chinese literacy acquired in kindergarten-showed increased holistic processing perhaps as an inchoate expertise marker when compared with kindergartners and non-Chinese first graders; however, the holistic processing effect was reduced in higher-grade Chinese children. These results suggest a non-monotonic inverted U-shape trend of holistic processing in visual expertise development: An increase in holistic processing due to initial reading experience followed by a decrease in holistic processing due to literacy enhancement. This result marks the development of holistic and analytic processing skills, both of which can be essential for mastering visual recognition. This study is the first to investigate the developmental trend of holistic processing in Chinese character recognition using the composite paradigm.
整体加工已被确定为面孔和物体识别的专业标志。相比之下，在识别汉字的正字法字符时，整体加工减少据称是专业标志。整体加工在专业发展中是增加还是减少？正字法识别是否是所有其他类型识别（例如面孔和物体）的特定领域的例外？在两项研究中，我们研究了汉字识别中整体加工在中文和非中文儿童中的发展趋势，以及其与读写能力的关系：中国一年级学生——在幼儿园获得新兴的中文读写能力——与幼儿园和非中国一年级学生相比，整体加工可能增加，也许是作为一种不成熟的专业标志；然而，高年资中国儿童的整体加工效应降低。这些结果表明，视觉专业发展中的整体加工呈非单调倒 U 形趋势：由于最初的阅读经验，整体加工增加，随后由于读写能力增强，整体加工减少。该结果标志着整体和分析加工技能的发展，这两者对于掌握视觉识别都是必不可少的。本研究首次使用组合范式调查了汉字识别中整体加工的发展趋势。
