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<p>The word frequency effect, where high-frequency words are processed faster than low-frequency ones, has been extensively studied in alphabetic writing systems. The effect has also been observed in Chinese reading, a language that differs enormously from alphabetic languages, not only in appearance but also in the nature of the words. In the present study, we investigated the word and character frequency effects in Chinese natural reading by analysing reading data from an eye-tracking corpus in which participants read an entire novel (GECO-CN). The results show that as character frequency in Chinese increases, the facilitative word frequency effect tends to flatten or even reverse, and vice versa. These findings suggest that Chinese sentence processing is influenced by the frequencies of both words and their constituent characters, indicating the importance of considering character frequencies when studying the word frequency effect. In addition, these results also provide a plausible explanation for the inconsistent character effects found previously.</p>

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The word and character frequency effect in Chinese natural reading

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年7月11日

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  • Longjiao Sui,
  • Evy Woumans,
  • Wouter Duyck,
  • Sam Boeve,
  • Nicolas Dirix

摘要

The word frequency effect, where high-frequency words are processed faster than low-frequency ones, has been extensively studied in alphabetic writing systems. The effect has also been observed in Chinese reading, a language that differs enormously from alphabetic languages, not only in appearance but also in the nature of the words. In the present study, we investigated the word and character frequency effects in Chinese natural reading by analysing reading data from an eye-tracking corpus in which participants read an entire novel (GECO-CN). The results show that as character frequency in Chinese increases, the facilitative word frequency effect tends to flatten or even reverse, and vice versa. These findings suggest that Chinese sentence processing is influenced by the frequencies of both words and their constituent characters, indicating the importance of considering character frequencies when studying the word frequency effect. In addition, these results also provide a plausible explanation for the inconsistent character effects found previously.