Abstract: The purpose of the present study was to explore processing modes of mental rotation and recognition for Chinese characters by means of its complexity.The complexities were manipulated separately on both the number of strokes and separability of components.They consisted of two independent experiments.In each experiment,the variable of angular deviations contained eight angular deviations from upright with increasing 45°step,i. e. ,0°,45°,90°,135°,180°,-45°,-90°and-135°.The experimental dependent variable was naming response time for rotated characters.The results were found that the indictors of the character's complexity,either number of strokes or the separability of components had respectively an interaction with the variable of angular deviations.This gave support to the whole-component mixed model in the processing modes for mental rotation and recognition of Chinese characters.

Key words: Chinese character, complexity, mental rotation, recognition