Orthographic and phonological processing in reading Chinese text: Evidence from eye fixations

The use of orthographic and phonologic information in reading Chinese text was investigated using an eye-monitoring technique. The basic manipulation was to change a critical character in a short passage so that various combinations of orthographic and phonological information were altered. Patterns of disruption caused by different manipulations were compared in order to reveal the use of orthographic and phonological information from individual characters during reading for comprehension; Results showed that orthographic manipulations produced reliable and early disruption in first fixation duration at the target word position. In contrast, phonological effects were only found in the measure of a relatively late stage of processing (i.e., total reading time) at the target position, but not in early measures of processing. These results supported the position that;it is orthography rather than phonology, which plays an early and dominant role in reading Chinese.