Abstract: In visual word recognition of Chinese words, it is necessary to process the relative order of Chinese characters in words, i.e., processing of the position of Chinese characters. The processing of the position of Chinese characters is important for word recognition and reading comprehension. If the position of Chinese characters is not processed, it would be difficult to distinguish and recognize transposable words. Transposable words are composed of the same Chinese characters, but the order of Chinese characters is different between words. Previous studies have found that the processing of the position of Chinese characters is more flexible within a word. In addition, the word boundary information affects the processing of the position of Chinese characters, that is, the processing of the position of Chinese characters has a word boundary effect. Which factors affect the word boundary effect of Chinese character position processing? In this project, the following three issues will be investigated systematically by using the eye tracking technique: (1) How do the initial/final characters of a word modulate the processing of Chinese character position? (2) How do the word boundaries of embedded words and ambiguous words affect Chinese character position processing? (3) How do word plausibility and predictability affect the word boundary effect of Chinese character position processing? The present project will provide new insights into the construction of character position processing model in Chinese, and promote modification of the model of Chinese word segmentation and word recognition. Furthermore, the findings will provide us scientific guidance for efficient vocabulary teaching and learning.

Key words: Chinese, word segmentation, word boundaries, Chinese character position, eye movements