Abstract
The aim of this study is to explore differences in the use that native English and native Japanese readers make of visual and phonological codes in processing phonograms. In Experiment 1, the authors conducted, both in the US and in Japan, the letter-matching experiments of Posner, Boies, Eichelman, and Taylor (1969) after modifying several problematic aspects with the procedures. In contrast to their earlier experimental results, our results showed that reaction time (RT) for letters with a physical match did not increase as a function of the inter-stimulus interval (ISI) and that mean RT in the physical match condition was shorter than that in the name match condition in Japan, although they were similar in magnitude in the US. These findings suggest that, for letters with a physical match, Japanese readers use visual codes while English readers use phonological codes. Experiment 2 employed an irregular letter-matching task devised to inhibit the use of the phonological code. The results showed that the mean RT in the physical match condition was shorter than that in Experiment 1 for English readers, although no such tendency was observed for Japanese readers, indicating that English readers largely depend on phonological codes while Japanese readers depend on visual codes in processing phonograms.
