Orthographic and phonological processing in reading Chinese text: Evidencefrom eye fixations

The use of orthographic and phonologic information in reading Chinese text was investigated using an eye-monitoring technique. The basic manipulation was to change a critical character in a short passage so that various combi nations of orthographic and phonological information were altered. Patterns of disruption caused by different manipulations were compared in order to reveal the use of orthographic and phonological information from individual characters during reading for comprehension; Results showed that orthograp hic manipulations produced reliable and early disruption in first fixation duration at the target word position. In contrast, phonological effects wer e only found in the measure of a relatively late stage of processing (i.e., total reading time) at the target position, but not in early measures of p rocessing. These results supported the position that;it is orthography rath er than phonology, which plays an early and dominant role in reading Chines e.