Qu, Q. 1 , Damian, M. 1 , Zhang, Q. 2 & Zhu, X. 2
1 School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
2 Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Is written word production affected by phonological properties? Most researchers agree that orthographic codes can be accessed directly from meaning, but the relative contribution of phonological codes remains controversial, mainly because in studies with alphabetic scripts it is difficult to dissociate sound from spelling. We report a picture-word interference study in which Chinese participants performed written picture naming while attempting to ignore written distractor words which were either phonologically and orthographically related, phonologically related only, or unrelated. Priming relative to the unrelated condition was found for both types of distractors, which constitutes clear evidence that phonological properties constrain orthographic output. Additionally, the results speak to the nature of Chinese orthography, suggesting sub-semantic correspondences between sound and spelling.