An investigation into the structure and acquisition of orthographic knowledge: Evidence from cross-script Kanji-Hiragana priming

Numerous studies have demonstrated that orthographic knowledge is coded in an abstract format in English (e.g., the perceptually dissimilar words READ/read map onto a common abstract orthographic representation). However, it is unclear at present whether this mapping occurs at the letter or word level. Two experiments investigated this issue in a language (i.e., Japanese) in which words can be written in perceptually unrelated scripts (Kanji and Hiragana) and, crucially, in which there are no letter correspondences between scripts. Using the long-term priming paradigm, robust priming was obtained when study-test words were depicted in Hiragana-Kanji, and vice versa Furthermore, little priming was obtained following a study-test modality shift. The modality-specific nature of this priming suggests that corresponding words in the two scripts share common orthographic representations. A model is outlined that describes how abstract orthographic knowledge is acquired.