Kanji lexicality effect in partial repetition priming: The relationship between Kanji word and Kanji character processing

Two experiments are described using a partial repetition priming paradigm. The prime type was whether a kanji character is used as a word by itself (word type) or not (nonword type). This property is called kanji lexicality. In Experiment 1, the effect of kanji lexicality was not confirmed, although there was a tendency in the responses for word-type primes to be slower than those for nonword-type primes. In Experiment 2, the kanji lexicality effect depended upon the target familiarity, and no facilitation was obtained for high-familiarity words with word-type primes. The results were interpreted in terms of a modified interactive-activation framework. (C) 1999 Academic Press.