Abstract: Using naming techniques, two experiments were conducted to examine the effectof relationship between the wholes and their parts in perceptual separation of Chinesecharacters. Experiment 1 was dedicated tO explore the condition of the radicalsseparated from Chinese characters which consisted of the same radicals. The resultsshowed that the difficulty of separating ladicals from the Chinese character wholeswere affected by the number of the radicals in the wholes, the fewer the radicalsexisted in the wholes, the more difficult separating radicals from the wholes, thetighter the radicals unite. Experiment 2 was carried out to examine the situation ofthe radicals separating from the wholes which consisted of different radicals. Theresults indicated that (1) the difficulty of separating radicals from the wholes wasdecided by the dependence of the wholes to their radicals. In the wholes, the moreimportant the radicals were, the more difficult the radicals separated from their wholes;(2) the positions of the radicals in the wholes also infulunced naming time of theradicals. The authors proposed the concept of "wholistic unite force". Wholistic uniteforce is an index of tighting degree which the parts relate with their wholes, anddecided the difficulty of the parts separating from their wholes. The authors alsosuggested that when we consider the role of the wholes and their parts, we shouldnot only think of the number of the parts but think of the quality of the parts, therelation of the wholes and their parts, the status and role of the parts in the wholes.

Key words: Whole, part, perception, relationship