Abstract: The effects of polysemy and word frequency in the identification of Chinese one-character word were examined in lexical decision, naming tasks and go-no go naming task. The results showed that significant polysemous advantage effects were observed in all tasks. The interaction appeared with the polysemy effects being produced only for low-frequency words in lexical decision task and naming task, but appeared for both low- and high- frequency words in the go-no go naming task. The pattern of results of all three tasks was almost the same. According to the parallel distributed processing models, a possible explanation of polysemy effects was proposed

Key words: one-character word, polysemous effect, lexical decision, naming, go-no go naming