THE EFFECT OF ORIENTATION UPON VISUAL-FIELD ASYMMETRIES IN THE RECOGNITION OF CHINESE WORDS

The relationship between visual field asymmetry and the orientation of Chinese words was investigated in the context of a threshold recognit ion task given to a sample of thirty one Singaporean Chinese. One-, tw o-, and three-character words were projected to the left or right visu al fields in either horizontal or vertical format. A right visual held advantage was observed for all word sizes. The effect of orientation was complex. Performance under left visual field presentation was clea rly superior for vertically oriented words. However, for right visual field presentation, performance in horizontal displays was critically dependent on word size. Two-letter words were identified significantly better than three-letter words. Two explanations of these effects wer e considered and it was concluded that orientation has marked implicat ions for visual field asymmetries in decoding Chinese orthography.