Abstract: Rhyme can be defined as a pair of words that are phonologically identical from the last accented vowel to the end of a word. Researches of rhyme processing mainly focus on two fields: rhyme identification and rhyme generation, both of which have similar cognitive processes, including orthographic coding, graphic-phonetic transformation, phonological representation and phonological segmentation. Investigations about the neural basis of rhyme processing, from two aspects: phonological processing and orthographic processing, indicated that the left inferior frontal gyrus and the left superior temporal gyrus control phonological representation and phonological segmentation respectively, and the left fusiform gyrus involves in orthographic coding, while valid graphic-phonetic transformation depends on neural network composed of left inferior parietal lobule and left inferior frontal gyrus. In future, results from different research methods and tasks should be integrated, and further discussion on rhyme generation should be employed.

Key words: rhyme, rhyme identification, rhyme generation, brain