[Task differences in the tachistoscopic Kanji recognition and their relations to hemisphere asymmetries (author's...

Two experiments were conducted to explore the hemispheric specialization for the visual recognition of Kanji. In Exp. I, effects of different processing strategies were examined. Reaction times obtained neither from physical identity matching nor phonological identity matching condition revealed any significant visual field differences. In Exp. II, hemispheric specialization for different levels of Kanji processing was investigated by those subjects who made both physical identity matching and semantic categorization matching. Results showed that RTs to the right visual field were shorter than that of the left in the semantic categorization matching, while no such significant visual field difference was revealed in the physical identity matching. Identical Kanji stimuli were used in both experiments to compare the relative strengths of the levels of processing and the effects of strategy on Kanji recognition. It is suggested from the present study that the effects of strategy in information processing is not strong enough to overcome the visual field difference while the visual field difference is strongly influenced by the levels of Kanji processing.