To determine an effective way of displaying language information, the ability of a subject to appropriately understand the information must be investigated. Event-related potential (ERP), which appears to reflect cognitive processes in the brain, is a suitable measure for such investigations. Therefore, to investigate the perception processes of kanji (Chinese characters), we analyzed the ERP of the subjects performing a kanji discrimination task which used known kanji, unknown kanji, and symbols as stimuli. P100, N170 and P250 at occipito-temporo-parietal electrodes and the vertex-positive potential (VPP) at front-central electrodes were elicited. There were significant amplitude differences between unknown and known kanji and between symbols and known kanji in both P100 and N170. Significant latency differences were also observed in both N170 and VPP in the same comparisons. In addition, similar significant differences existed in the comparison between symbols and unknown kanji. These results suggest that P100, N170, VPP are related to the kanji perception process, especially to the comparison stage.
