Psycholinguistic Evidence for Laterality Preferences and Information Processing in Japanese

要旨

The human brain exhibits hemispheric differences in information pro­ cessing functions, and this fact of laterality preferences is reflected in lan­ guage processing functions which involve lexical access and written word recognition in Japanese. This paper evaluates the Japanese psycholinguis­ tic literature in the areas of experimental psychology and clinical aphasiology in an attempt to ascertain whether Japanese is unique in its characteristic pattern of laterality preferences in information processing tasks which involve its syllabary (kana) and Chinese character (kanji) or­ thographic representations. This paper also addresses misperceptions re­ garding lateralization and hemispheric preferences in processing Japanese orthographic types, since purported differences in lateralization can be un­ critically accepted as underlying factors in not only language processing, but can also find their way into Nihonjinron discussions of differences in mental attitude and philosophical outlook.

主題