June, 1993: B.S. Kaohsiung Medical College, Psychology Department June, 1995: M.A. National Chung-Cheng University, Psychology Department December, 2000: Ph.D. National Chung-Cheng University, Psychology Department
Chia-Ying Lee received her Ph.D. in Psychology at National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan and did her postdoctoral research in Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While languages, like English and Chinese, seem to differ from each other vastly, decades of researches have revealed a common core underlying all languages. Chia-Ying Lee’s research has focused on elucidating the underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms of visual word recognition both at the universal and language specific levels. The research topics include the mapping consistency between Chinese orthography and phonology transformation, the neighborhood size effects in reading Chinese characters and disyllabic compounds, and the relationship between the abilities for speech perception and reading by using behavioral, neuroimaging (fMRI) and electrophysiology (ERP/MEG) measurements. The central hypothesis underlying these researches is that the visual word recognition relies on the co-activation among orthographic, phonological and semantic units. The readers acquire the statistical mappings (cross-code consistency) among these units through learning to read.
Current Projects
The combinability effect in reading Chinese characters
In the past few years, a growing body of studies has shown that a word’s identification is affected by its neighborhood properties. This project is examined to investigate the radical combinability effect (the orthographic neighborhood size effect) in reading Chinese characters. Most of Chinese are phonograms which were usually composed by a semantic radical on the left and a phonetic radical on the right. Radical combinability was defined as the number of characters that shared a semantic or phonetic radical. Current work has demonstrated that the combinability effect can be found in P200 and N400 components. In general, characters with low semantic or phonetic combinability show a more positive P200 and a less negative N400 than characters with high semantic or phonetic combinability. Furthermore, we found radical combinability interacts with the function of radical. For example, the semantic combinability effect can only be found in semantically transparent characters and the phonetic consistency effect is more salient in reading characters with large orthographic neighborhood. Those findings suggested a two-stage framework of Chinese lexical processing and congruent with the view of the orthographic neighborhood similarity will participate in the phonological restructuring processes.
The brain dynamics of phonological processing in learning to read Chinese To acquire reading, the children must be able to learn a set of print codes used by their writing system for representing the units of spoken language (such as syllables and phonemes). It is widely believed that impaired phonological processing is the key deficit in developmental dyslexia (Snowling, 2000). Yet, this deficit can be related to a wide range of possible processes, such as the general auditory processing, the speech perception, the integration of orthographic information with speech sounds, and the retrieval of phonological information at lexical level. In this project, a series of MEG study with three major paradigms tapping different levels of phonological processing will be used to examine the cerebral implementation of phonological processing in Chinese readers with and without reading difficulties. First, the mismatch negativity paradigm will be used to examine the ability to detect the acoustic change detection and phoneme-specific processes in speech perception. Secondly, the phonological mismatch paradigm will be used to examine the ability in integrating the orthographic information with speech sounds. Third, the half-visual field paradigm will be used to explore the when, where, and how the two hemispheres divide the labor of Chinese orthographic and phonological processing by manipulating the consistency and combinability of the phonetic radical. The cross-linguistic evidences will shed some light on the brain dynamics of phonological processing in reading Chinese.
Lee, C.-Y., Tsai, J.-L., Chan, W-H., Hsu, C-H., Tzeng, O. J.-L., & Hung, D. L. 2007. The temporal dynamics of the consistency effect in reading Chinese: An ERP study. Neuroreport 18(2):147-151.
Hsiao, J., Shillcock R., and Lee, C.-Y. 2007. Neural correlates of foveal splitting in reading: evidence from an ERP study of Chinese character recognition. Neuropsychologia 45:1280-1292.
Ahrens, K., Liu, H.-L., Lee, C.-Y., Gong, S.-P., Fang S.-Y., and Hsu, Y.-Y. 2007. Functional MRI of conventional and anomalous metaphors in Mandarin Chinese. Brain and Language 100(2):163-171.
Lee, C.-Y., Tsai, J.-L., Huang, H-W., Tzeng, O. J.-L., & Hung, D. L. 2006. The temporal signatures of semantic and phonological activations for Chinese sublexical processing: an event-related potential study. Brain Research 1121(1):150-159.
Huang, H-W., Lee, C.-Y., Tsai, J.-L., Tzeng, O. J.-L., & Hung, D. L. 2006. Orthographic neighborhood effects in reading Chinese two-character words. Neuroreport 17(10): 1061-1065.
Tsai, J.-L., Lee, C.-Y., Lin, Y.-C., Tzeng, O. J.-L., & Hung, D. L. 2006. Neighborhood size effects of Chinese words in lexical decision and reading. Language and Linguistics 7(3):659-675.
Lee, C.-Y., Tsai, J.-L., Chiu, Y.-C., Tzeng, O. J.-L., & Hung, D. L. 2006. The early extraction of sublexical phonology in reading Chinese pseudocharacters. Language and Linguistics 7(3):619-636.
Ahrens, K., Liu, H.-L., Lee, C.-Y., Gong, S.-P., Fang S.-Y., and Hsu, Y.-Y. 2006. (in press)Functional MRI of conventional and anomalous metaphors in Mandarin Chinese. Brain and Language.
Hsiao, J., Shillcock R., and Lee, C.-Y. 2006. (in press). Neural correlates of foveal splitting in reading: evidence from an ERP study of Chinese character recognition. Neuropsychologia.
Lee, C.-Y., Tsai, J.-L., Huang, H-W., Tzeng, O. J.-L., & Hung, D. L. 2006. The temporal signatures of semantic and phonological activations for Chinese sublexical processing: an event-related potential study. Brain Research 1121:150-159.
Lee, C.-Y., Tsai, J.-L., Su, E. C.-I., Tzeng, O. J.-L., & Hung, D. L. 2005. Consistency, regularity and frequency effects in naming Chinese characters. Language and Linguistics 6(1):75-107.
Lee, C.-L., Hung, D. L., Tsed, J. K.-P., Lee, C.-Y., Tsai, J.-L., & Tzeng, O. J.-L. 2005. Processing of disyllabic compound words in Chinese aphasia: Evidence for processing limitation hypothesis. Brain and Language 92:168-184.
Lee, C. Y., Tsai, J.-L., Kuo. W.-J., Hung, D. L., Tzeng, O. J.L., Yeh, T.-C., Ho, L.-T., Hsieh, J.-J. 2004. Neuronal correlates of consistency and frequency effects on Chinese character naming: Event-related fMRI study. Neuroimage 23:1235-1245.
Tsai, J. L., Lee, C. Y., Tzeng, O. J. L., Hung, D. L., & Yen, N. S. 2004. Use of phonological codes for Chinese characters: Evidence from processing of parafoveal preview when reading sentences. Brain and Language 91:235-244.
Yeh, S.-L., Chang, H.-C., Chen, I-P., & Lee, C.-Y. 2003. Prelexical Phonology by Low Spatial Frequency Channels?. Chinese Journal of Psychology.
Kuo,W.J., Yeh, T.C., Lee, C.Y., Wu, Y.T., Chou, C.C., Ho, L.T., Hung, D.L., Tzeng, O.J.L., & Hsieh, J.C. 2003. Frequency Effects of Chinese Character Processing in the Brain: an Event-Related fMRI Study. Neuroimage 18(3), 720-730.
Lee, C.-Y., Jie-Li Tsai, Wen-Husan Chan, Chun-Hsien Hsu, Daisy L. Hung & Ovid J. L. Tzeng. 2007. The temporal dynamics of consistency effect in reading Chinese: An Event-potentials study. The 14th annual meeting of Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS). New York, USA.
Cheng,Y.-Y., Lee, C.-Y., Tsai, J.-L., Hung, D. L., & Tzeng, O. J.-L. 2007. The combinability effect of semantic radical in reading Chinese characters. The 14th annual meeting of Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS). New York, USA.
Hsu, C.-H., Tsai, J.-L., Lee, C.-Y., Hung, D. L., & Tzeng, O. J.-L. 2007. An ERP study for investigating the semantic combinability effect and phonetic consistency effect in reading Chinese. The 14th annual meeting of Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS). New York, USA.
Lee, C.-Y., Jie-Li Tsai, Tzu-Chen Yeh, Jen-Chuen Hsieh, Daisy, L. Hung & Ovid J.-L. Tzeng. 2007. An fMRI study for the consistency and lexicality effects in reading Chinese. The 2nd RIKEN BSI and Oxford-Kobe International Symposium: Reading and Dyslexia in Different Languages. Kobe, Japan.
Lee, C.-Y., Tsai, J.-L., Hsu, C.-H., Tzeng, O. J.-L., & Hung, D. L. 2006. The early extraction of sublexical phonology in reading Chinese pseudocharacters: an Event-related potentials study. The 12th annual meeting of Human Brain Mapping. Florence, Italy.
Huang, H.-W., Tsai, J.-L., Lee, C.-Y., Tzeng, O. J.-L., & Hung, D. L. 2006. The N400 effect of morphemic size in Chinese word recognition.. The 12th annual meeting of Human Brain Mapping. Florence, Italy.
Yen, H.-L., Liu, H.- L., Lee, C.-Y., Ng, Y.-B., & Müller, H. M. 2006. Are proper names mono-referential and carrying less meaning? Neuroimaging evidence in Mandarin Chinese. In K.-A. Hossmann (Ed.), Neuro-Visionen 4. Symposia of Nordrhein-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 2006. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh.
Lee, C.-Y. 2005. The early extraction of sublexical phonology in reading Chinese. The Opening Ceremony of MEG Laboratory in the Academia Sinica and the International Conference of Cognitive Neuroscience. Academic Sinica.
Lee, C.-Y., Huang, H.-W., Tzeng, O. J.-L., & Hung, D. L. 2005. The Consistency Effect in Reading Chinese Pseudocharacters: An MEG Phonological Mismatch Study. The International Conference of Cognitive Neuroscience. Academic Sinica.
Hsu, C.-H., Lee, C.-Y., Hung, D. L., & Tzeng, O. J.-L. 2005. An Event-related potential study of the consistency and combinability effects in reading Chinese phonograms. The 11th International Conference on Processing Chinese and Other East Asian Languages. Hong-Kong.
Lee, C.-Y., Tsai, J.-L., Chiu, Y-C., Tzeng, O. J.-L., & Hung, D. L. 2005. The early extraction of sublexical phonology in reading Chinese pseudocharacters: an Event-related potentials study. The 11th annual meeting of Human Brain Mapping. Toronto, Canada.
Tsai, J.-L, Lee, C.-Y., Huang, H-W., Tzeng, O. J.-L., & Hung, D. L. 2005. Event-related potentials reflect the effects of neighborhood size and word frequency in Chinese words recognition. The 11th annual meeting of Human Brain Mapping. Toronto, Canada.
Huang, H. -W., Lee, C. -Y., Lee, C. -L., Tsai, J. - L., Hung, D. L., & Tzeng, O. J. -L. 2005. An Electrophysiological study of the orthographic neighborhood frequency effect in Chinese word recognition. The 12th annual meeting of Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS). New York, USA.
Huang, C. -M., Lee, C. -Y., Huang, H. -W., Tsai, J. - L., Hung, D. L., & Tzeng, O. J. -L. 2005. An Electrophysiological study of the orthographic neighborhood size effect in Chinese semantic transparent and opaque words. The 12th annual meeting of Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS). New York, USA.
Yen, H.-L., Liu, H.-L., Lee, C.-Y. & Müller, H.M. 2005. Are proper names really different from common nouns? A view of brain processing. Proceedings of the 11th Annual Meeting of the Organization for of Human Brain Mapping. Toronto, Canada.
Lee, C. Y., Huang, S. W., Lee, C. L., Tsai, J. L., Hung, D. L., & Tzeng, O. J. L. 2004. An Electrophysiological study of the orthographic neighborhood size effect in Chinese word recognition. The 11th annual meeting of Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS). San Francisco, USA.
Tsai, J. L., Lee, C. Y., Lee, C. L., Huang, S. W., Hung, D. L., & Tzeng, O. J. L. 2004. An Event-Related Potential study of interpreting Nouns and Verbs in reading Chinese sentences. The 11th annual meeting of Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS). San Francisco, USA.
Tsai, J. L., Lee, C. Y., Yen, M. H., Tzeng, O. J. L., & Hung, D. L. 2003. Perceptual units when reading Chinese sentence. The 44th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society. Vancouver, Canada.
Lee, C. Y., Tsai, J. L., Huang, H. W., Hung, D. L., & Tzeng, O. J. L. 2003. The nature of Sublexical Processing in Reading Chinese Characters: An ERP Study. The 44th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society. Vancouver, Canada.
Lee, C.-L., Hung, D. L., Tsed, J. K.-P., Lee, C.-Y., Tsai, J.-L., & Tzeng, O. J.-L. 2002. Processing of disyllabic compound words in Chinese aphasia. The 10th International Conference on Cognitive Processing of Chinese and Other Related Asian Languages. Taipei, Taiwan.
Tsai, J. L., Lee, C. Y., Tzeng, O. J. L., & Hung, D. L. 2002. Eye movement control of saccade targeting when reading Chinese. The International Symposium on Brain and Language. Kanazawa, Japan.
Chia-Ying LEE
Associate Research Fellow
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