Dongba Script's Facilitation of Preschoolers' Memory for Chinese Character Orthography Through Implicit Learning
This study examined how different learning modes—learning Chinese characters alone, characters paired with pictures, or characters paired with Dongba pictographs—affect preschoolers' memory for Chinese character orthography during implicit learning. Using a task-dissociation paradigm, children performed a color-judgment task as an incidental learning vehicle. Experiment 1 used a recognition task to assess explicit memory for character form across four learning-mode groups (character-only, Dongba-only, Dongba-character, picture-character), immediate vs. delayed testing, and noun vs. verb word classes. Experiment 2 used a preference-judgment task to assess implicit memory under the same conditions. Materials were 40 characters (nouns/verbs, pictographic/ideographic vs. phono-semantic) matched for frequency, stroke count, and concreteness. Results showed that, under paired-learning conditions, Dongba pictographs significantly enhanced children's explicit memory for character orthography, suggesting Dongba script can serve as an effective auxiliary tool for teaching Chinese characters to young children, though effects on implicit memory were less pronounced.
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