Table 1.

Examples of stimuli used in the semantic-relatedness tasks

Character repetition in Chinese (implicit)Semantic relatedness (explicit)
Sound repetitionSpelling repetitionSemantically relatedUnrelated
Experience — SurpriseAccountant — ConferenceHeaven — HellSports — Wealth
Jing Yan — Jing YaKuai Ji — Hui YiTian Tang — Di YuTi Yu — Cai Fu
Embedded Image — Embedded ImageEmbedded Image — Embedded ImageEmbedded Image — Embedded ImageEmbedded Image — Embedded Image
SRE, 1.60 (±0.22)SRE, 1.67 (±0.21)SRE, 4.62 (±0.41)SRE, 1.51 (±0.20)
SRC, 1.16 (±0.54)SRC, 1.23 (±0.53)SRC, 4.24 (±0.33)SRC, 1.18 (±0.24)

  • Each cell contains one example of an English word pair used in the semantic-relatedness task, its simplified Chinese translation, the corresponding Chinese Pin Yin (alphabetic transposition of the phonological form), and the mean semantic relatedness of the words in English (SRE) and Chinese (SRC). SD of the mean relatedness is given in parentheses. SRE of word pairs was rated on a scale from 1 to 5 by a group of 25 native English speakers, and the Chinese translations (SRC) were rated by a group of 27 native Chinese speakers. None of the evaluators was involved in the ERP experiments.

  • Difference in semantic relatedness was highly significant between semantically related word pairs and other conditions (p < 0.0001 for all pairwise comparisons), but there was no difference in semantic relatedness induced by either phonological or orthographic repetition in Chinese, whether it was hidden (English) or visible (Chinese) (p > 0.1 for all pairwise comparisons).