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Visual-Spatial฀Properties฀and฀ Orthographic฀Processing฀of฀ Chinese฀Characters฀ Xuefeng฀Chen฀and฀Henry฀S.฀R. ฀Kao฀ The ter m orthography i s used b y som e author s fo r spellin g patterns an d for correc t o r standard spellin g rules of scripts (Richards , Piatt,& c Weber , 1985). From writing syste m to writing system , orthographic informatio n differs. Maso n (1975 ) identifie d orthographi c informatio n a s a for m o f redundancy tha t ca n b e used t o augmen t visua l feature information . Sh e initially isolated four possibl e sources of information i n word recognition . The first two are the direct visual information abou t the distinctive feature s of individual letters within a word an d the direct visual information abou t the spatial position o f letter s in a letter string . Mason's definitio n implie s a stron g visua l facto r i n the natur e o f orthographi c information . For mos t alphabeti c scripts , th e wor d i s compose d o f left-to-righ t letters. Word reading follows a unidirectional o r one-dimensional scannin g path. However , fo r Chinese , each characte r occupie s a n imaginar y spac e of identical size. The shapes of the characters reflect a two-thousand-yea r history o f brushwor k calligraphy , i n whic h on e o f th e mos t importan t features i s equi-dimensionality (Martin , 1972) . This featur e come s fro m the imaginar y spac e inheren t i n eac h character , a square . Chines e characters shoul d b e treate d a s containe d i n a rigi d squar e o f unifor m size, occupyin g 2-dimensiona l spac e bot h i n heigh t an d width . Th e characters hav e bee n calle d Fang[l]kuai[4] Zi[4] (squar e script) sinc e th e development o f clerica l script . Related description s ca n b e seen from th e more popula r literatur e o n the Chines e languag e (e.g . Hu, 1992 ; Huan g 176 XUEFEN G CHEN AN D HENRY S . R . KA O 6c Hu, 1990 ; Liu, 1999 ; Lu, 1987 ) o r fro m psychologica l researc h (e.g. , Chen, 1997 ; Huan g& c Wang, 1992 ; Jackson, Lu , &C Ju, 1994 ; Taf t 6 c Zhu, 1997a) . According t o th e mos t genera l principl e o f Gestal t psychology , th e law o f Pragnanz, peopl e ten d t o organiz e form s i n th e simples t wa y possible. A square, amon g othe r 2- D geometri c patterns , i s the simples t pattern (Koffka , 1935) . I t incorporate s al l th e visua l propertie s mos t strongly suggeste d b y Gestal t principles : symmetr y (i n fou r axes , i.e. , horizontal, vertica l an d tw o diagonals) , closure, continuity an d balance , which contribut e t o th e matte r o f simplicity . Therefore , i t i s obviousl y easier to be alerted b y vision than an y other patterns. A square, however , is much mor e than these . It contains som e other regula r visua l propertie s as well, such as collinearity, connectivity an d parallelism. With a n implie d correspondence betwee n th e shap e o f th e squar e an d th e character , characters ma y var y i n term s o f th e exten t t o whic h the y posses s th e geometric properties of the square. Recently, Kao (2000) analysed the most primitive writing systems, including Egyptian writing, Sumerian script an d Chinese oracl e bon e script . He found tha t ther e is an existenc e o f severa l common visua l propertie s i n primitive writin g systems : they ten d t o b e pictographic, closed, parallel, and symmetric . Therefore, w e may sa y tha t the primitiv e writin g system s ar e th e direc t an d natura l projectio n o f human's visua l perception t o the outsid e world. However , Chines e scrip t is the onl y writte n languag e tha...

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