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Li J, Liu Y, Wang Y, Wang N, Ji Y, Wei T, Bi H, Yang Y. Functional brain networks underlying the interaction between central and peripheral processes involved in Chinese handwriting in children and adults. Hum Brain Mapp 2022; 44:142-155. [PMID: 36005850 PMCID: PMC9783426 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.26055] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/04/2022] [Revised: 07/19/2022] [Accepted: 08/02/2022] [Indexed: 02/05/2023] Open
Abstract
The neural mechanisms that support handwriting, an important mode of human communication, are thought to be controlled by a central process (responsible for spelling) and a peripheral process (responsible for motor output). However, the relationship between central and peripheral processes has been debated. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, this study examined the neural mechanisms underlying this relationship in Chinese handwriting in 36 children (mean age = 10.40 years) and 56 adults (mean age = 22.36 years) by manipulating character frequency (a central variable). Brain network analysis showed that character frequency reconfigured functional brain networks known to underlie motor processes, including the somatomotor and cerebellar network, in both children and adults, indicating that central processing cascades into peripheral processing. Furthermore, the network analysis characterized the interaction profiles between motor networks and linguistic-cognitive networks, fully mapping the neural architecture that supports the interaction of central and peripheral processes involved in handwriting. Taken together, these results reveal the neural interface underlying the interaction between central and peripheral processes involved in handwriting in a logographic writing system, advancing our understanding of the neural basis of handwriting.
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Affiliation(s)
- Junjun Li
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Center for Brain Science and Learning DifficultiesInstitute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijingChina,Department of PsychologyUniversity of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijingChina
| | - Ying Liu
- School of Medical HumanitiesCapital Medical UniversityBeijingChina
| | - Yi Wang
- School of Mechanical and Materials EngineeringNorth China University of TechnologyBeijingChina
| | - Nizhuan Wang
- School of Biomedical EngineeringShanghaiTech UniversityShanghaiChina,Artificial Intelligence and Neuro‐Informatics Engineering (ARINE) LaboratorySchool of Computer Engineering, Jiangsu Ocean UniversityLianyungangChina
| | - Yuzhu Ji
- Department of Psychology, College of EducationZhejiang University of TechnologyHangzhouChina
| | - Tongqi Wei
- Pan Shuh LibraryInstitute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijingChina
| | - Hong‐Yan Bi
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Center for Brain Science and Learning DifficultiesInstitute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijingChina,Department of PsychologyUniversity of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijingChina
| | - Yang Yang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Center for Brain Science and Learning DifficultiesInstitute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijingChina,Department of PsychologyUniversity of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijingChina
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Zhang J. Exploring Orthographic Representation in Chinese Handwriting: A Mega-Study Based on a Pedagogical Corpus of CFL Learners. Front Psychol 2022; 13:782345. [PMID: 35360603 PMCID: PMC8960431 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.782345] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/24/2021] [Accepted: 02/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Writing and reading are closely related and are thus likely to have a common orthographic representation. A fundamental question in the literature on the production of written Chinese characters concerns the structure of orthographic representations. We report on a Chinese character handwriting pedagogical corpus involving a class of 22 persons, 232 composite character types, 1,913 tokens, and 13,057 stroke records, together with the inter-stroke interval (ISI), which reflects the parallel processing of multilevel orthographic representation during the writing execution, and 50 orthographic variables from the whole character, logographeme, and stroke. The results of regression analyses show that orthographic representation has a hierarchy and that different representational levels are active simultaneously. In the multilevel structure of orthographic representation, the representation of the logographeme is absolutely dominant. Writing and reading have both commonalities and individual differences in their orthographic representations. The online processing of the logographeme unit probably occurs at the ISI before the initial stroke of the current logographeme, which may also cascade to the first subsequent logographeme. In addition, we propose a new effective character structure unit for describing orthographic complexity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jun Zhang
- College of Advanced Chinese Training, Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing, China
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Lau DKY, Liang Y, Nguyen HA. Measuring Orthographic Knowledge of L2 Chinese Learners in Vietnam Using a Handwriting Task - A Preliminary Report. Front Psychol 2022; 13:784019. [PMID: 35250724 PMCID: PMC8890491 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.784019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2021] [Accepted: 01/03/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
In the current study, the orthographic knowledge required for writing Chinese characters was assessed among participants with L1 Vietnamese background who learn Chinese as a foreign language. A total of 42 undergraduates were recruited. They were invited to participate in a delayed Chinese character copying task consisting of 32 characters. Their Chinese character reading abilities were also obtained using a character naming task. All the tests were conducted online during the pandemic in 2021. Results indicated that the participants' accuracy in the copying task was affected by the familiarity of the characters and the number of strokes of the characters. These effects minimized as reading performance increased. In the inter-stroke interval (ISI) analysis, results indicated a significant boundary effect where ISIs between orthographic units were longer than ISIs within orthographic units, showing the participants' tendency to chunk Chinese characters into functional units when they write. Only high achievers in the reading task demonstrated the use of both large and small grain-size units in writing (i.e., radical-boundary ISI > logographeme-boundary ISI > non-boundary ISI), while the low achievers only used small grain-size units in their writing. We suggest that the delayed copying task incorporated with handwriting measures is an effective method to assess orthographic knowledge of L2 Chinese learners.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dustin Kai-Yan Lau
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Yuan Liang
- Department of Chinese Language Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Hoang-Anh Nguyen
- Faculty of Chinese Language and Culture, University of Languages and International Studies, VNU, Hanoi, Vietnam
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Lin Z, Tam F, Churchill NW, Schweizer TA, Graham SJ. Tablet Technology for Writing and Drawing during Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging: A Review. SENSORS 2021; 21:s21020401. [PMID: 33430023 PMCID: PMC7826671 DOI: 10.3390/s21020401] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/19/2020] [Revised: 12/31/2020] [Accepted: 01/04/2021] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Abstract
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a powerful modality to study brain activity. To approximate naturalistic writing and drawing behaviours inside the scanner, many fMRI-compatible tablet technologies have been developed. The digitizing feature of the tablets also allows examination of behavioural kinematics with greater detail than using paper. With enhanced ecological validity, tablet devices have advanced the fields of neuropsychological tests, neurosurgery, and neurolinguistics. Specifically, tablet devices have been used to adopt many traditional paper-based writing and drawing neuropsychological tests for fMRI. In functional neurosurgery, tablet technologies have enabled intra-operative brain mapping during awake craniotomy in brain tumour patients, as well as quantitative tremor assessment for treatment outcome monitoring. Tablet devices also play an important role in identifying the neural correlates of writing in the healthy and diseased brain. The fMRI-compatible tablets provide an excellent platform to support naturalistic motor responses and examine detailed behavioural kinematics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhongmin Lin
- Department of Medical Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1L7, Canada;
| | - Fred Tam
- Physical Sciences, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON M4N 3M5, Canada;
| | - Nathan W. Churchill
- Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science, St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, ON M5B 1T8, Canada; (N.W.C.); (T.A.S.)
| | - Tom A. Schweizer
- Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science, St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, ON M5B 1T8, Canada; (N.W.C.); (T.A.S.)
- Division of Neurosurgery, St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, ON M5B 1W8, Canada
| | - Simon J. Graham
- Department of Medical Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5G 1L7, Canada;
- Physical Sciences, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON M4N 3M5, Canada;
- Correspondence:
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Lau DKY. Orthographic and Phonological Processing in Chinese Character Copying - A Preliminary Report. Front Psychol 2020; 11:2122. [PMID: 33041883 PMCID: PMC7523426 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02122] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2019] [Accepted: 07/30/2020] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
In the current study, the effects of orthographic and phonological processing in Chinese character copying were investigated using a data set extracted from a database containing handwriting data of 856 stimuli; the responses of which were collected from 100 participants. To investigate the effect of character frequency, radical frequency, and phonetic regularity, 151 phonetic compounds were selected from the database because (1) their corresponding phonetic radicals were all free-standing characters, (2) their corresponding phonetic radicals were located at either the right or the bottom positions in the characters, and (3) no more than 10% of the participants made errors when copying these target characters. The results of the linear mixed effect models revealed that after controlling for inter-stroke distance (ISD) and stroke number, the inter-stroke intervals (ISIs) at the radical and logographeme boundaries were significantly longer, indicating significant orthographic processing in the immediate copying task that radicals and logographemes were used as writing units. In addition, shorter ISIs at the logographeme boundary associated with higher radical frequency, and shorter ISIs at the radical boundary associated with higher character frequency and regular characters, were observed. These observations indicated significant orthographic and phonological effects in the immediate copying task. Finally, the significant phonetic regularity effect observed also supported the notion that phonology contributes to Chinese character writing and that the effects of central processing, including character frequency and phonetic regularity, cascade over peripheral processing during Chinese character copying.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dustin Kai-Yan Lau
- Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong
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Abstract
We report on a psycholinguistic database of Chinese character handwriting based on a large-scale study that involved 203 participants, each handwriting 200 characters randomly sampled from a cohort of 1,600 characters. Apart from collecting writing latencies, durations, and accuracy, we also compiled 14 lexical variables for each character. Regressions showed that frequency, age of acquisition, and the word context (in which a character appears) are all-around and influential predictors of orthographic access (as reflected in writing latency), motor execution of handwriting (as reflected in writing duration), and accuracy. In addition, phonological factors (phonogram status, spelling regularity, and homophone density) impacted orthographic access but not handwriting execution. Semantic factors (imageability and concreteness) only affected accuracy. These results suggest, among other things, that phonology is consulted in orthographic access while handwriting. As the first of its kind, this database can be used as a source of secondary data analyses and a tool for stimulus construction in handwriting research.
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Yang Y, Zhang J, Meng ZL, Qin L, Liu YF, Bi HY. Neural Correlates of Orthographic Access in Mandarin Chinese Writing: An fMRI Study of the Word-Frequency Effect. Front Behav Neurosci 2018; 12:288. [PMID: 30555308 PMCID: PMC6284029 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00288] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2018] [Accepted: 11/08/2018] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Writing is an essential tool for human communication and involves multiple linguistic, cognitive, and motor processes. Chinese, a logographic writing system, differs remarkably from the writing systems of alphabetic languages. The neural substrates of Chinese writing are largely unknown. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a copying task, this study probed the neural underpinnings of orthographic access during Mandarin Chinese writing by employing the word-frequency effect. The results showed that writing low-frequency characters evoked greater activation in the bilateral superior/middle/inferior frontal gyrus, superior/inferior parietal lobule, and fusiform gyrus than writing high-frequency characters. Moreover, psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis demonstrated that the word-frequency effect modulated functional connectivity within the frontal-occipital networks and the parietal-occipital networks. Together, these findings illustrate the neural correlates of orthographic access for Mandarin Chinese writing, shedding new light on the cognitive architecture of writing across various writing systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yang Yang
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Center for Brain Science and Learning Difficulties, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Center for Language and Brain, Shenzhen Institute of Neuroscience, Shenzhen, China
| | - Jun Zhang
- Jiangxi Institute of Education Sciences, Nanchang, China.,School-family Partnership Research Center, Graduate School of Education, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Ze-Long Meng
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Center for Brain Science and Learning Difficulties, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Li Qin
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Center for Brain Science and Learning Difficulties, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Yu-Fei Liu
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Center for Brain Science and Learning Difficulties, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Hong-Yan Bi
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Center for Brain Science and Learning Difficulties, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
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