title: The Role of Phonological Processing in Semantic Access of Chinese Characters: A Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study.
abstract: The Stroop task was used to investigate the role of phonological processing in semantic access for written Chinese language. Fourteen children were recruited to perform the Stroop task, using color characters, their homophones and neutral characters as stimuli. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) was used to measure the brain activation in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) during the task. In view of better sensitivity, oxy-hemoglobin was chosen to indicate the task activation. In behavioral performance, there was a significant classical Stroop interference effect as indexed by longer response time and higher error rate for the color task than the neutral task, whereas there was no evident interference effect for the color homophones. The NIRS data agreed with the behavioral data, and showed a significant Stroop effect only for the color characters in the bilateral PFC. These results suggested that phonology may not play an important role in semantic activation of Chinese characters for children.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, 523808, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jinyan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, 523808, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Linshang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.affiliation: Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Chenyang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, 523808, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Lan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.affiliation: Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, People's Republic of China. huigong@mail.hust.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gong
mesh_terms: D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior; D055253:Color Vision; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010092:Oximetry / Q000379:methods*; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood*; D010101:Oxygen Consumption; D010108:Oxyhemoglobins / Q000378:metabolism; D010700:Phonetics; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D019265:Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared; D057190:Stroop Test
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D010108:Oxyhemoglobins; D010100:Oxygen
keywords: Chinese; Near-infrared spectroscopy; Phonological processing; Semantic access; Stroop