Abstract: The hierarchical model of English word perception, presented by Johnson and McClelland ( 1980), suggested that identification of an English word is mediated by identification of its component letters. The model explains why people are more accurate in perceiving a briefly presented letter when it appears in a word than it appears alone (the word-letter phenomenon). The results of their experiment supported the model. Comparing a Chinese character composed with more than two radicals to an English word, we can see the structure of a Chinese character in as similar way to that of an English word. Is identification of a Chinese character mediated by identification of its component radicals? Suppose that the hierarchical model of English word perception could explain the procession of Chinese character perception, we could make two predictions which are compatible with the ones from Johnson and McClelland' s model: (1) The sizable character-radical phenomenon that can beobtained using a mask made up of radical features should be greatly reduced if the mask consists of complete radicals. (2) The size of the character-radical phenomenon should be the same whether a mask is a real Chinese character or a pseudo-character. The experiment reported in this paper confirmed prediction 1 , but prediction 2 was inconsistent with the result of our experiment. Nevertheless, the hierarchical model of Chinese character perception should be modified.

Key words: Chinese character recognition, the character-radical phenomenon, the hierachieal model