An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of phonemic or graphemic similarity on recoding of Chinese words. The introduction of acoustic and visual similarity within the list using a retroactive interference design for memory of items showed that both intralist variables were factors causing reduction in recall, with acoustic similarity being more detrimental to short-term retention. An auditory interference task was also shown to have a more severe effect than a visual interference task. Results suggested that dual encoding processes are involved in reading and remembering Chinese.
Participants were instructed in Mandarin. On each trial, a target list of four characters was presented at a rate of 1 character/sec by Slides onto a rear projection screen using a Kodak Carousel projector.