Research Themes

• 漢字表記語の読みにおける形態ー音韻間の相互作用メカニズムの解明
  Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
  Hiroshima Shudo University
  Apr. 2020 - Mar. 2024
• A study of phonological neighbor effect concerning the difference of processing between Kanji words and Katakana words
  Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity start-up
  Bunkyo Gakuin University
  Aug. 2017 - Mar. 2019
  In this study, I examined whether there is an influence of phonological neighbor words between kanji words and katakana words when reading each two orthographies. As a results of research, it was suggested that it activated the phonological information of kanji words to katakana words and katakana words to kanji words, and there is an influence by those phonological information when reading that words. These results indicated that phonological information is used effectively that does not depend on orthography even when we visually recognize kanji and katakana words.
• The role of phonological information in the reading of Japanese kana and kanji words
  Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
  Waseda University
  Apr. 2012 - Mar. 2017
  In order to address the issue of whether Japanese kana and kanji words are read differently, I attempted to examine 1) whether automatic phonological activation arises for kana and kanji words, 2) whether different semantic activation routes are used for kana and kanji words, and 3) whether the nature of phonological-orthographic (P-O) relationships is different for kana and kanji words. The results suggested that, for both kana and kanji words, 1) automatic phonological activation arises early in processing and 2) semantic activation arises directly from orthography when the orthographic forms are familiar, whereas semantic activation arises via phonology when the orthographic forms are unfamiliar. When the P-O relationships and the effect of P-O consistency were examined, however, the difference did emerge for kana versus kanji words. These results indicate that P-O consistency must be taken into account when considering the processing difference for kana and kanji words.