Zhang, Qi and Reilly, Ronan (2020) What regions of Chinese characters are crucial for recognition? A web-based study. Journal of Chinese Writing Systems, 4 (4). pp. 297-311. ISSN 2513-8502

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Abstract

The study involves approximately 250 Chinese university students from eight institutions to determine what parts of a representative sample of Chinese characters are crucial to their correct identification. A web-based experimental platform was used to present 102 simplified characters to participants. The characters were partially obscured using a Gaussian blurring technique. The direction of maximum blur could either be from top to bottom, bottom to top, left to right, or right to left. Participants were asked to identify the blurred character and type its pinyin. Overall, participants correctly identified 88% of characters. The effects of all forms of blurring on correct recognition were correlated with character structures. Phonetic radicals seem to be more sensitive to the blurring than semantic radicals, while the radical transparency and radical frequency also play a role in the recognition accuracy. The blurring conditions that impacted most significantly on correct recognition were top to bottom and bottom to top, which caused, respectively, the upper and lower parts of the character to be obscured.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	The is the preprint version of the published article, which is available at: Zhang Q, Reilly RG. What regions of Chinese characters are crucial for recognition? A web-based study. Journal of Chinese Writing Systems. 2020;4(4):297-311. doi:10.1177/2513850220950020
Keywords:	blurring; Chinese characters; recognition;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Computer Science Faculty of Science and Engineering > Maynooth International Engineering College
Item ID:	15658
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1177/2513850220950020
Depositing User:	Prof. Ronan Reilly
Date Deposited:	11 Mar 2022 14:23
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Chinese Writing Systems
Publisher:	Sage Publications
Refereed:	No
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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