Hemispheric processing of Chinese hànzì and English words: A lateralized lexical decision study

AbstractWe presented orthographic English words or Chinese logographic hanzi primes to either the left or right visual fields followed by a semantically related target to the opposite visual field. Chinese hanzi primed English words in both hemispheres but English required right-hemisphere involvement to prime hanzi symbols. This study suggests that Chinese hanzi and English word translation recruits both hemispheres. Our results are consistent with the conclusion that the two cortical hemispheres maintain parallel, but different, representations of hanzi, just as has been shown with English words.