Neighborhood Size Effects of Chinese Words in Lexical Decision and Reading

Two experiments manipulating neighborhood size and word frequency were used to investigate the lexical processing of Chinese words. The neighborhood size of a word is defined as the number of two-character words sharing the same initial constituent character. The first experiment measured the response latencies of lexical decision and the second experiment recorded the eye movements in reading the same set of stimuli embedded in sentences. Both lexical decision times and eye movement measures consistently showed the facilitative effects of neighborhood size. Words with many neighbors produced faster response of lexical decision, higher skipping rate, and shorter fixation duration than words with few neighbors. The results indicate that, representations of all neighboring word are partially activated and play a supportive role in the early stage of lexical access.