Comparison of identification of Chinese versus English words with brief exposures.

The orthographic differences between Chinese and English should influence the identification of words in the two languages. This study compared the identification of 50 Chinese and 50 comparable English words by 17 Chinese and 17 English participants, respectively. For English words, correlation and analysis of variance indicated significant effects for frequency and letter count. For Chinese words, the same statistical analyses yielded a significant frequency effect. Both analyses also showed stroke count of the first Chinese character was not related to accuracy of identification, while the two analyses yielded inconsistent results concerning relationships between the stroke count of the second character and accuracy of identification. These studies did not employ a masking stimulus, and 5 msec. were enough to activate sensory memory of most Chinese words, while 10 msec. were needed for most English words. These differences were significant by Wilcoxon rank-sum tests.

EEG alpha desynchronization in musicians and nonmusicians in response to changes in melody, tempo, and key in classical music.

Two experiments were performed to examine musicians' and nonmusicians' electroencephalographic (EEG) responses to changes in major dimensions (tempo, melody, and key) of classical music. In Exp. 1, 12 nonmusicians' and 12 musicians' EEGs during melody and tempo changes in classical music showed more alpha desynchronization in the left hemisphere (F3) for changes in tempo than in the right. For melody, the nonmusicians were more right-sided (F4) than left in activation, and musicians showed no left-right differences. In Exp. 2, 18 musicians' and 18 nonmusicians' EEG after a key change in classical music showed that distant key changes elicited more right frontal (F4) alpha desynchronization than left. Musicians showed more reaction to key changes than nonmusicians and instructions to attend to key changes had no significant effect. Classical music, given its well-defined structure, offers a unique set of stimuli to study the brain. Results support the concept of hierarchical modularity in music processing that may be automatic.