MORPHOLOGICAL PROPERTIES AND THE CHINESE CHARACTER-WORD DIFFERENCE INLATERALITY PATTERNS

This study questioned whether the so-called Chinese character-word dif ference in laterality patterns really exists. Experiments 1 to 3 exami ned the laterality patterns of 2 types of Chinese single characters, t hose that can serve as a word (free morphemes) and those that cannot ( bound morphemes). Experiment 4 examined the laterality patterns of 3 t ypes of Chinese words: single-character words, monomorphemic 2-charact er words, and bimorphemic 2-character words. Experiment 5 examined the laterality patterns of 3 types of Chinese 2-character items: monomorp hemic words, bimorphemic words, and phrases. All 5 experiments failed to find any kind of interaction between stimulus type and visual field . The results provided no support for previous findings in English stu dies that word length has a greater effect in the left visual field.