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The modulation of semantic transparency on the recognition memory for two-character Chinese words

Memory & Cognition volume 42, pages 1315–1324 (2014)Cite this article

Abstract

This study demonstrated that semantic transparency as a linguistic property modulates the recognition memory for two-character Chinese words, with opaque words (i.e., words whose meanings cannot be derived from constituent characters—e.g., “光[/guang/, light]棍[/gun/, stick]”, bachelor) remembered better than transparent words (i.e., words whose meanings can be derived from constituent characters—e.g., “茶[/cha/, tea]杯[/bei/, cup]”, teacup). In Experiment 1, the participants made lexical decisions on transparent words, opaque words, and nonwords in the study and then engaged in an old/new recognition test. Experiment 2 employed a concreteness judgment as the encoding task to ensure equivalent semantic processing for opaque and transparent words. In Experiment 3, the neighborhood size of the two-character words was manipulated together with their semantic transparency. In all three experiments, opaque words were found to be better remembered than transparent words. We concluded that the conceptual incongruence between the meanings of a whole word and its constituent characters made opaque words more distinctive and, hence, better remembered than transparent words.

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Notes

  1. The 184 two-character words consisted of 361 characters in total, with 7 characters appearing in two words. The statistical results reported in the experiments remain the same when trials containing these words were excluded.

  2. The F ratios of the simple main effects reported here and in the following experiments were computed with the mean squared errors from the original ANOVAs.

  3. Note that despite the interactions involving both the factors of neighborhood size and transparency in the analysis of the old/new response were not significant, similar to the analysis of the “remember” responses, there was a greater tendency for the transparent words than for the opaque words for the overall hit rate to be higher for words with small neighborhood size than for those with large neighborhood size.

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Acknowledgments

Yi-Jhong Han and Shuo-chieh Huang made equal contributions to this study. This research was supported by grants from Academia Sinica and the National Science Council, Taiwan to Shih-kuen Cheng (NSC 98-2517-S-004-001, NSC 101-2410-H-008-034, AS-102-TP-C06).

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Central University, No. 300, Jhongda Rd., Jhongli City, Taoyuan County, 32001, Taiwan

    Yi-Jhong Han, Shuo-chieh Huang & Shih-kuen Cheng

  2. Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

    Chia-Ying Lee

  3. Institute of Neuroscience, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Wen-Jui Kuo

Authors
  1. Yi-Jhong Han
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  2. Shuo-chieh Huang
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  3. Chia-Ying Lee
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  4. Wen-Jui Kuo
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  5. Shih-kuen Cheng
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Correspondence to Shih-kuen Cheng.

Appendix

Appendix

The instructions for the “remember” and “know” judgments (translated from Mandarin Chinese)

A “remember” response is given when you have specific sensational, perceptual, or cognitive experience associated with the prior occurrence of the two-character word. This experience could be from the environment (e.g., the physical properties of the words, sounds heard during the prior presence, and the words appearing before or after its presentation) or from your subjective feeling (e.g., thoughts when you saw the words). If you retrieve any of those images, thoughts, or appearances, please give a “remember” response. In contrast, if you are very sure that the word has been presented in the study phase but you cannot find any sensational, perceptual, or cognitive experience associated with its prior occurrence, please give a “know” response. Please feel free to give your own responses. Please distinguish between these two responses, because you will be asked to explain why you gave a “remember” or “know” response during the practice before the formal section.

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Han, YJ., Huang, Sc., Lee, CY. et al. The modulation of semantic transparency on the recognition memory for two-character Chinese words. Mem Cogn 42, 1315–1324 (2014). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-014-0430-1

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Keywords

  • Semantic transparency
  • Recognition memory
  • Remember/know