Beyond Script Universality: A Meta-Analysis of Transposition Effects on Visual Word Recognition in Hangul
摘要
This chapter synthesized existing studies of transposed manipulations in Korean into an overall effect size in a meta-analysis. Effect sizes were calculated for 16 studies identified and the average effect size was computed when multiple effect sizes were available. Due to the different constructs of response time (RT) and precision judgment, RTs and error rates were analyzed separately. Both RT and error data showed significant effects. Considering the amount of variability in effect sizes beyond the sampling error as indicated by the heterogeneity index, moderator analyses were performed on the factors of task differences (standard lexical decision vs. other tasks), linguistic units to which transposition was applied (letter transposition vs. syllable transposition), and item characteristics [length of the stimulus (disyllabic vs. other lengths) and trial numbers]. These factors moderated the speed and precision of judgment of altered visual input. Collectively, the findings of this study were consistent with significant transposition effects found in Latin-based scripts, albeit varied by those moderators. This suggests that word recognition in Hangul is governed by the operating principle of an alphabet, yet it is influenced by script-specific characteristics.