Abstract: An experiment designed to study the development of visual discrimination of Chinese characters was applied to primary school children of the 1st. , 2nd. and 5th. grades. The discrimination task required S to match a standard character with an identical one, the latter being grouped in a list of characters varied according to different principles. The results indicated: 1) Significant difference was found between 2nd. and 5th. grades. 2) Changes in character structure caused more errors in 2nd. and 5th. grades but not in the 1st. grade. This suggested that central storage plays a part in the recognition process.

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