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Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition
2011, Vol. ●●, No. ●, 000 – 000© 2011 American Psychological Association
0278-7393/11/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0024491

The Functional Unit of Japanese Word Naming:
Evidence From Masked Priming
Rinus G. Verdonschot

Sachiko Kiyama and Katsuo Tamaoka

Leiden University

Nagoya University

Sachiko Kinoshita

Wido La Heij and Niels O. Schiller

Macquarie University

Leiden University

Theories of language production generally describe the segment as the basic unit in phonologicalencoding (e.g., Dell, 1988; Levelt, Roelofs, & Meyer, 1999). However, there is also evidence that sucha unit might be language specific. Chen, Chen, and Dell (2002), for instance, found no effect of single
segments when using a preparation paradigm. To shed more light on the functional unit of phonologicalencoding in Japanese, a language often described as being mora based, we report the results of 4
experiments using word reading tasks and masked priming. Experiment 1 demonstrated using Japanesekana script that primes, which overlapped in the whole mora with target words, sped up word reading
latencies but not when just the onset overlapped. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated a possible role ofscript by using combinations of romaji (Romanized Japanese) and hiragana; again, facilitation effects
were found only when the whole mora and not the onset segment overlapped. Experiment 4 distinguishedmora priming from syllable priming and revealed that the mora priming effects obtained in the first 3
experiments are also obtained when a mora is part of a syllable. Again, no priming effect was found forsingle segments. Our findings suggest that the mora and not the segment (phoneme) is the basic
functional phonological unit in Japanese language production planning.
Keywords: onset priming, Japanese, language production, phonological unit

way or the other, that word-form construction is performed byincrementally clustering phonological segments (phonemes) intosyllabic patterns. For instance, for the word Japan, the segments/dȢ/ and /ə/ would be clustered into the first syllable, /dȢə/, and thenext three segments, /p/ /æ/ /n/, would be clustered into /pæn/,thereby creating the phonological form /dȢə -pæn/. However, thefunctional unit size may differ substantially between languages.
For instance, Meyer (1991) and Roelofs (2006), using a so-called
implicit priming task, also known as the preparation paradigm (aparadigm that we describe in more detail later), found that Dutch
target words that overlapped in the first phoneme (e.g., boek, bijl,beer [book, axe, bear]) were read aloud faster than words thatdiffered in their first phoneme, indicating that the first phoneme ofa word (a subsyllabic segment) is a functional unit in Dutch. In
contrast, Chen et al. (2002; Experiment 5), using the same task,
found that when to-be-named Mandarin Chinese target words
overlapped in the first phoneme (e.g., mo, ma, mu, mi), no facilitation effect was apparent. Facilitation was found, however, whenwords overlapped in the complete first syllable. Chen et al. (2002)concluded that Mandarin Chinese does not allow planning at a
subsyllabic level and that syllables (not segments) are the functional units linked to speech production in Mandarin Chinese. This
is in agreement with Chen, Lin, and Ferrand (2003), who reacheda similar conclusion from data obtained in a masked priming study.
The idea of variable functional unit size between languages isfurthermore in line with results obtained by Ferrand, Segui, andGrainger (1996), who investigated the role of sublexical phonological units (in particular the syllable) in French. Using a masked

Although languages throughout the world display a great deal ofvariation, most research on language production has focused onWest Germanic and Romance languages, such as English, Dutch,
and French. As a consequence, many theories of language production (e.g., Dell, 1988; Levelt et al., 1999) have proposed, in one

Rinus G. Verdonschot and Niels O. Schiller, Leiden Institute for Brain
and Cognition, Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, and Cognitive
Psychology Unit, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands; Sachiko
Kiyama and Katsuo Tamaoka, Graduate School of Languages and Cultures, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan; Sachiko Kinoshita, Macquarie
Centre for Cognitive Science and Department of Psychology, Macquarie
University, Sydney, Australia; Wido La Heij, Cognitive Psychology Unit,
Leiden University.
Rinus G. Verdonschot’s research in Japan was supported by Leids
Universiteits Fonds. Niels O. Schiller’s research is supported as a fellowin-residence 2010/2011 from the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences in Wassenaar, The Netherlands.
We thank Chikako Ara, Nanae Murata, and John Phillips for their assistance and recruiting while Rinus G. Verdonschot was testing in Japan;
Setsuko Tashiro for her help with the creation of the stimuli; Bernhard
Hommel, Kim Ouwehand, and Kees Verduin for their valuable suggestions; and Vincent Marion for his technical assistance.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Rinus G.
Verdonschot, Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition and Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University, P. O.
Box 9555, NL-2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands. E-mail: r.verdonschot@
hum.leidenuniv.nl
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VERDONSCHOT ET AL.

2priming technique, in which participants were required to read
aloud words (or name pictures), while keeping the amount ofoverlap (in segments) between masked prime words and targets
constant, they manipulated whether or not the prime constituted awhole syllable. For instance, the consonant–vowel (CV) prime /ba/constitutes the whole first syllable of BA.LADE, but it is only partof the first syllable of BAL.CON. Furthermore, the consonant–vowel– consonant (CVC) prime /bal/ transcends the first syllableof BA.LADE, whereas it makes up the whole first syllable of
BAL.CON. Ferrand et al. always obtained greater priming (facilitation) when the prime equaled the syllable than when it did not.
This effect was also found in nonword and picture naming. However, the effect disappeared in a lexical decision task, indicatingthat the syllable priming effect likely finds its origin in the generation of articulatory output, which, according to Ferrand et al., issyllabically structured in French.
This is in contrast to results obtained by Schiller (1998), who in
Dutch (using the same paradigm as the previous study; i.e., masked
priming in word and picture naming) found that CVC primes
always caused greater priming than CV primes. These results
indicate that the syllable does not constitute a functional unit in the
production of Dutch phonology as it does in French (see, however,Brand, Rey, & Peereman, 2003, for a failure to replicate thesyllable effect in French). In fact, Schiller (1998) found that themore segments overlap between prime and target, the more priming will be obtained in Dutch, leading to the segmental overlap
hypothesis (for similar findings in English, see Schiller, 2000). In
the current study, we aim to extend the discussion of languagespecific functional units to Japanese, a language that has beenargued to be mora timed, in contrast to stress-timed Dutch andEnglish and syllable-timed French and Chinese (see Port, Dalby, &O’Dell, 1987; Warner & Arai, 2001).
In Japanese phonology, a distinction can be made between thesyllable and the mora. For instance, a word such as nihon (Japan)
consists of two syllables (ni and hoN; N 5 nasal coda), but one canfurther divide this word into three moras (e.g., ni.ho.N). Moras are
considered metrical units. They typically correspond to an equal
number of kana symbols (Japanese script; e.g.,), and eachmora is assumed to be generally constant in duration (e.g., /ni/,/ho/, and /N/ last roughly equally long). Therefore, in Japanese,moras (such as the nasal coda) form an independent rhythmical
structure within a syllable. The range of Japanese moras is quite
limited, with only 108 different items divided into five types(Otake, Hatano, Cutler, & Mehler, 1993): CV (consonant–vowel),CCV (consonant– consonant–vowel), V (vowel), N (nasal coda),
and Q (geminate). Japanese words usually involve simple moraic

CV combinations (e.g., /ka/ or /mi/), which, in CV form, equal asyllable. However, other combinations are also possible. For example, long vowels take two moras (e.g., [CVV]/nou/ “brain”),
and geminate elements (e.g., [CVQ.CV]/kiQ.te/ “stamp”)
and nasal coda elements (e.g., [CVN]/hoN/ “book”) also takeone mora each. Furthermore, a diphthong (VV) takes one mora perelement (e.g., [VV.CV]/ei.go/ “English”). See Table 1 for T1
an overview of a selection of some Japanese words and theirproperties.
As stated, mora structures in Japanese are well reflected in thekana script, which constitutes moraic symbols divided into hiragana and katakana. These scripts were adapted from the more
complicated logographic kanji characters to allow a more precise
phonological representation of native Japanese vocabulary words
and their inflectional morphology. The kana scripts are phonological in nature by being based on a one-to-one correspondence ofkana to mora, but their usage differs. Katakana is mainly used torepresent loanwords, typically those from languages with alphabetic writing systems, proper nouns, and proper names from foreign languages (e.g.,/ma.ku.do.na.ru.do/ for “McDonald’s,” the fast-food restaurant). Hiragana, on the other hand,is used for native elements in the language, such as function words,
inflectional affixes, and onomatopoeia, as well as those borrowings that have been assimilated into the language.
Evidence demonstrating that the mora plays an important role inlanguage production comes from speech errors. For instance,
Kubozono (1989) found that Japanese are more likely to elicit
errors that respect mora boundaries; for example, /toma(re)/“stop!” and /(suto)Qpu/ “stop!” would be blended into /to.maQ.pu/(thereby including the geminate [5 mora] and not simply the last
syllable). Furthermore, many Japanese language games also respect moraic structure. Consider a game played by children (andadults), such as shiritori (Katada, 1990, p. 641), in which players
have to come up with a follow-up word that starts with the lastelement (i.e., mora) of the previously heard word. For example,
when /kao/ “face” is heard, /oN.ga.ku/ “music” would be a valid
answer, indicating that not the entire diphthong but only the last
mora (i.e., /o/) is important. When a player says /ka.mi/ “paper/
god/hair,” a good continuation would be /mi.zu/ “water”; however,/mi.zu/ cannot be followed by /zu.boN/ “trousers,” because Japanese has no word that begins with a nasal coda. As such, the player
would lose the game.
Empirical evidence that the mora plays an important role in theJapanese language comes from studies on speech segmentation(e.g., Cutler & Otake, 1994; Otake et al., 1993). In these studies,participants were required to monitor Japanese words for the

Table 1
Example of Japanese Words Differing in Structure, Syllable, and Number of Moras
Word meaning

Kanji

Transcription

paper
book
stamp
Englishdragon⚕

/ka.mi//hoN//kiQ.te//ei.go//ryuu/

Kana

Structurea

Syllables

Moras

CV.CV
CVN
CVQ.CV
VV.CV
CjVV

2
1
2
2
1

2
2
3
3
2

a
CV 5 consonant–vowel; N 5 nasal coda; Q 5 geminate; VV 5 diphthong; Cj 5 consonant with palatal glide).
(C1,

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THE FUNCTIONAL UNIT OF JAPANESE WORD NAMING

Fn1

appearance of specific strings of segments, for example, CV (“na”)
or CVN (“naN”). No detection advantage was found for CV
structures whether they were part of a CV.CV.CV or a CVN.CV
target word, contrary to what a syllable hypothesis would predict(CVN.CV being more difficult, as CV target is only part of thesyllable CVN). In addition, CVN targets (e.g., “naN”) were mucheasier to detect in CVN.CV words such as “naN.ka,” where thenasal coda served as a separate mora, than in “na.no.ka,” where thetarget is only part of a mora. These patterns were not obtained
when the same experiment was repeated with English participants,
leading Otake et al. (1993) and Cutler and Otake (1994) to conclude that Japanese speech segmentation respects mora boundaries.1
However, there could be other factors playing a role, such as thetype of task being used. This becomes evident as Otake and Cutler(2003) found using a word reconstruction paradigm that participants were sensitive to submoraic (e.g., segmental) information. In
this paradigm, participants had to judge whether auditorily presented nonwords could be reconstructed into real words. Otake andCutler showed that participants found it easier to reconstruct/ka.me.ra/ from nonwords that had a partial mora preserved, suchas /ki.me.ra/ and /na.me.ra/, than from /ni.me.ra/, in which thewhole mora was different. In a subsequent lexical decision task,
participants heard words and nonwords for which the so-called
nonword uniqueness point (i.e., the point in the word when it starts
differing from a real word; e.g., the “i” in Japin), was manipulated.
Otake and Cutler found that the sooner a word became a nonword,
the faster participants could reject it. In their regression analysis,
duration and phoneme (but not moras) significantly accounted fora portion of the variance as independent predictors. Therefore,
Otake and Cutler concluded that segmental information contributes to word recognition. This is in line with findings reported by
Tamaoka and Taft (1994), who presented participants with katakana strings to which a word/nonword judgment had to be made(lexical decision task). Participants found it harder to reject/ko.me.ra/, which is one mora and one phoneme different from thereal loanword /ka.me.ra/, than /so.me.ra/, which is one mora andtwo phonemes different. Tamaoka and Taft concluded therefore
that participants were sensitive to segmental information whenprocessing Japanese kana.
A more recent study by Kureta, Fushimi, and Tatsumi (2006)
directly investigated the functional encoding unit in Japanese
speech production using the preparation (or implicit priming)
paradigm (e.g., Meyer, 1991). In this paradigm, participants are
typically required to learn small sets of semantically related wordpairs (called prompt–response pairs). Participants are subsequently
asked to produce the corresponding response word upon presentation of a prompt; for instance, a participant should respond bysaying “ring” after seeing the prompt marriage. Creating small
blocks differing in phonological consistency can influence thepresence and absence of priming. For instance, prompts can bepresented that result in phonologically congruent (or homogeneous) blocks, such as rule, rain, ring (all starting with the phoneme /r/), or prompts can be presented that have no phonologicalrelationship (so-called heterogeneous blocks), such as cloud, book,ring. Reaction times typically are shorter in the homogeneous
blocks than in the heterogeneous blocks when there is phonological congruency in the first syllable (but not the rhyme; see Meyer,1991). Kureta et al. (2006) found that for Japanese this form

3

preparation effect occurred only when initial consonant and vowel(CV) were similar (e.g., katsura, kabuki, kaban) and not when justthe consonant or consonant plus palatal glide (Cj) were similar(e.g., katsura, kujira, kofun and gyakuten, gyuuniku, gyousei, respectively). Kureta et al. concluded on the basis of these data thatthe mora plays a crucial role in the construction of the phonological form of a Japanese word. Although their study was welldesigned and their results and interpretation were clear cut, there
are some additional issues that, in our view, deserve further examination.
One important issue concerns the fact that although Kureta et al.
(2006) used different scripts (to avoid character repetition inhomogenous blocks; e.g.,[katsura; hiragana],[kabuki; kanji], and[kaban; kanji]), they did not include stimuli
written in romaji (Romanized Japanese; e.g., using alphabetic
script). Kureta et al. did not include these words, as words written
in romaji have a low orthographic plausibility (i.e., a subjective
rating scale concerning the preferred orthographic form in which aparticular word is usually written; Amano & Kondo, 1999). However, including romaji would have had the benefit of including ascript that involves processing of individual phonemes (as inlanguages with an alphabetic script). Although the orthographic
plausibility is low, romaji is taught at primary school, and many
Japanese frequently use romaji to input Japanese text on computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices. Therefore, many
Japanese are well able to read and write Japanese using romaji.
In summary, there are studies demonstrating contrasting effects(e.g., Cutler & Otake, 1994 [speech segmentation] vs. Otake &Cutler, 2003 [word reconstruction]) with respect to functional unit
size. Yet, a study by Kureta et al. (2006) yielded preparation
effects for the whole mora only and not the segment.
We believe that although there is a growing body of evidence
for the mora as a functional unit of phonological encoding inJapanese (e.g., Kureta et al., 2006), it is not conclusive at thismoment. In this paper, we are especially interested in whether theso-called masked onset priming effect (MOPE), a form priming
effect due to the initial segment only, can be found in Japanese.
This, to our knowledge, has not previously been tested. The MOPE
refers to the finding that when a target word (e.g., HOME) is
preceded by a prime word sharing the onset (e.g., hill) briefly
presented under visually masked conditions, reading aloud of thetarget is facilitated compared to when prime (e.g., pill) and target(HOME) do not share their onset (e.g., Forster & Davis, 1991;
Grainger & Ferrand, 1996; Schiller, 2004; for a review, see Kinoshita, 2003). Forster and Davis proposed that the MOPE originates in the nonlexical route in naming, that is, when the sublexical
phonology from a letter string is computed from its orthography(also called orthography-to-phonology conversion, or OPC). In
contrast, Kinoshita (2000) proposed that the locus of the MOPE
occurs later than OPC (i.e., at the level of phonological encoding1
It is worthwhile to mention that in the speech segmentation literature
an effect of script on segmentation has been shown. Inagaki, Hatano, andOtake (2000) compared Japanese preschool children who were not yet able
to read with older Japanese children who were able to read kana (moraic
script). They found that the literate children (e.g., who could read kana)shifted their segmentation preference from a syllable-based representation
toward a mora-based representation.

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VERDONSCHOT ET AL.

of the speech response), in what she termed the speech-planningaccount. In particular, the phonologies from the prime and thetarget are proposed to compete for a slot during the segment-toframe association process in speech planning. A mismatch between the onset of the prime and target will cause an inconsistency
in the speech plan, and resolving this conflict comes at a processing cost and, hence, takes longer (Kinoshita & Woollams, 2002).
In this paper, we examine native speakers of Japanese using amasked priming paradigm to establish whether or not a MOPE canbe found in Japanese. If so, this could be taken as evidence that thephoneme can function as an independent functional planning unit.
A factor of influence, as argued earlier, could be the role ofscript in the detection and processing of phonological information.
Consider, for instance, findings from two masked priming experiments using Korean by Kim and Davis (2002), who found a(marginal) onset effect when primes and targets were presented inhangul (script favoring segments) but not when the target waspresented in hanja (a script favoring syllables). They concluded
that the underlying nature of the script may have been responsible
for the discrepancy in results between the two experiments. Suchfindings may be interpreted in terms of the nature of target script
governing the units that drive the phonological encoding process,mediated by the unit of the orthography-to-phonology mapping
process. That is, when the target script is alphabetic, as in Korean
Hangul, Cyrillic script, and romaji, the phonology would likely
become available segment by segment, and the segment-to-frame
association process of the target, as the name implies, could indeed
proceed on a segment-by-segment basis. A MOPE could be observed in this case because the segmental information in the prime
overlapping with the target is useful: The target script allows thephonological encoding process to proceed in a segment-bysegment fashion.
In contrast, when the target script is hanja, the target phonology
would become available only in the syllable-sized unit. In thiscase, the segment-to-frame association process of the target could
proceed syllable by syllable but not segment by segment; hence,
overlapping segmental information made available by the hangul
prime may not produce onset priming. Thus, manipulating thetarget script in Japanese (mora-based kana vs. segment-basedromaji) is important for interpreting the presence or absence of a
MOPE: It may either be because segments are not the functional
unit of phonological encoding in Japanese or because the unit oforthography-to-phonology mapping was not a segment. On thereasonable assumption that the nature of target script governs
the unit of orthography-to-phonology mapping, a MOPE in Japanese may depend on the nature of the target script. In contrast, if
the functional unit of phonological encoding in Japanese is a mora
and not a segment, a MOPE should be absent even when the target
script is segmental (e.g., romaji).
We present the empirical results of four experiments. Throughout the experiments, the degree of overlap was always manipulated
from one consonantal segment in the MOPE condition (e.g., target:
ka.ze; primes: ko.to vs. so.to) to whole mora (CV) overlap (e.g.,target: ka.ze; primes: ka.mi vs. na.mi). The first experiment was
aimed to ascertain whether the masked priming paradigm could
provide empirical results that could distinguish between onset andmora priming. The second and third experiments investigated thepossible role of script (i.e., does romaji allow for onset priming
more than does kana). The fourth experiment was aimed to dis-tinguish mora from syllable priming by introducing C and CV
primes in nasal coda and geminated targets (e.g., CVN.CV and
CVQ.CV). We hypothesized that if the mora (and not the phonemeor syllable) reflects the functional phonological unit in Japanese,
we should obtain a priming effect only when the whole mora
overlaps. However, if the paradigm (masked vs. implicit priming)
and/or script type (kana vs. romaji) indeed have an influence, we
may also expect segmental priming effects (e.g., MOPE) to surface.

Experiment 1: Segment vs. Mora Priming
In the first experiment, the participants’ task was to namehiragana strings that were presented on the computer screen.
Targets were preceded by masked primes, and participants weredivided into two groups. In both groups, the target was presented
in hiragana (e.g.,/su.shi/), but although the MOPE group also
/seN/ vs.
/reN/)
received the primes in hiragana (e.g.,
the mora group received the primes in katakana (e.g.,/su.mi/vs.
/gu.mi/) to avoid visual repetition. As Japanese does nothave capital letters, presenting both prime and target in hiragana in
the MOPE setting would amount to a complete visual repetition/su.mi/ –/su.shi/). If the segment functions as an(e.g.,
independent unit in Japanese, we would expect to find priming
effects in both groups, with perhaps a larger effect for the moragroup (as more segments are overlapping). If the mora and not thesegment functions as an independent planning unit, we would
expect to find priming effects only in the mora group.

MethodParticipants.
Twenty-two undergraduate students from
Yamaguchi University, Yamaguchi, Japan (15 female, 7 male;average age 5 20.3 years, SD 5 1.3), took part in the MOPE
(segment overlap) part of this experiment, and 20 undergraduate
students from Reitaku University, Kashiwa, Japan (15 female, 5male; average age 5 23.7 years, SD 5 4.9), took part in the
MORA (mora overlap) part. All students received financial compensation for their participation. All participants were native
speakers (and fluent readers) of Japanese and had normal orcorrected-to-normal vision.
MOPE stimuli. Forty-two bi-moraic words were selected astargets, and an additional 42 bi-moraic, semantically unrelated
words were selected as primes. All words (primes and targets)were selected such that a broad variety of moras appeared at thefirst position (e.g., ka, ki, ku, ke, ko; sa, shi, su, se, so). Primes andtargets were presented in hiragana (Japanese syllabic script). There
was no visual overlap between prime and target (e.g., target/kaze/ with the onset prime/koto/ vs. the control prime/soto/). Some mora combinations appear more frequently thanothers, for instance, the bi-moraic combination/koto/ is more
frequent than the bi-moraic combination/kao/ (for more
information, see the openly accessible database on bi-moraic frequencies on http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/;ktamaoka/
down_en.htm). Mora frequencies are assumed to have some effects on naming latencies, as shown by Tamaoka and Makioka(2009), who found that when naming nonwords high-frequency
intial moras were named faster than were low-frequency initialmoras. However, bi-mora frequencies showed a less prominenttapraid5/zfv-xlm/zfv-xlm/zfv00611/zfv2629d11z xppws S51 8/25/11 12:10 Art: 2010-2347

THE FUNCTIONAL UNIT OF JAPANESE WORD NAMING

role when naming actual words than nonwords. Nonetheless,whenever possible, primes were matched to form pairs, thereby
avoiding bi-moraic frequency effects (e.g., the target/seki/
was paired with the onset prime/soto/ vs. the control prime/koto/).
MORA stimuli. Thirty bi-moraic words from the same corpus as the MOPE stimuli were selected as targets, and an additional 30 bi-moraic, semantically unrelated words were selected as
primes. As the MORA prime and target when both presented inhiragana have complete character repetition, primes were presented in katakana and targets were presented in hiragana. Carewas taken to avoid onset moras having visually matching characteristics in both scripts; for example, words starting with “ka”
(hiragana: ; katakana: ) were not selected. Whenever possible
the MORA primes formed pairs to avoid any frequency effects.
See Appendix A for an overview of the stimuli used in these twoparts of Experiment 1.
Design. In both the MOPE and MORA parts of this experiment, targets were preceded either by an overlapping prime (first
segment in the MOPE case or complete mora in the MORA case)or by a control prime. Participants in the MOPE part received 84
trials, and participants in the MORA part received 60 trials.
Pseudo-random lists were constructed for each individual participant such that phonologically or semantically related primes ortargets had at least a distance of two trials to avoid unintended
priming effects.
Procedure. In all reported experiments, the software package
E-Prime 2.0 combined with a voice key was used for stimulus
presentation and data acquisition. Participants were seated approximately 60 cm from a 17-in. LCD computer screen (Eizo Flexscan
P1700 with a screen cycle refresh rate of 60 Hz) in a quiet roomat Yamaguchi University (MOPE part) or Reitaku University(MORA part) and were tested individually. After a short explanation of the experimental paradigm and two warm-up trials, participants started the experiment proper. A trial comprised the presentation of a fixation cross (750 ms) followed by a forward mask
consisting of hash marks (##; 500 ms) and subsequently a hiragana(MOPE part) or katakana (MORA part) prime (50 ms) that was
replaced immediately by the target, which disappeared when theparticipant responded or after maximally 3,000 ms. Masks, primes,
and targets were presented with the MS Mincho font (36 pt). All
items appeared as black characters on white background. Targetwords consisted of two hiragana characters, which covered about
1.5° 3 2.7° of visual angle. After each trial, the experimenter
recorded the accuracy of the response. There was a short breakhalfway through the experiment, and then two warm-up trials
preceded the continuation of the experiment. Naming latencies
were measured from target onset. Participants were specifically
instructed to respond as fast as possible while avoiding errors.
They were not informed about the existence of the prime. After theexperiment, informal interviewing showed that participants weregenerally unaware of the presentation of the primes.

Results
MOPE results. Naming latencies exceeding three standard
deviations per participant per condition and voice-key errors were
excluded from the analysis (6.7% of the data). As errors were few(1.7% of the data) and were equally distributed across conditions,5

an error analysis was not performed. The reaction time analysis
showed that there were no significant priming effects for onset
overlap compared to control primes, ts , 1, min F9(1, 31) , 1.
MORA results. Naming latencies exceeding three standard
deviations per participant per condition and voice-key errors were
excluded from the analysis (7.7% of the data). As errors were few(0.1% of the data) and were equally distributed across conditions,an error analysis was not performed. The reaction time analysis
revealed that there was a significant priming effect (15 ms) when
the whole mora prime overlapped compared to control, t1(19) 5
3.72, SD 5 18.11, p , .01; t2(29) 5 3.45, SD 5 24.23, p , .01,
min F9(1, 47) 5 6.40, p , .001 (see Table 2 for an overview). T2

Discussion
The results of Experiment 1 show no effect of onset priming but
do show an effect of mora overlap priming. This suggests that thefunctional unit in Japanese language production is not the segment
but the mora. However, it should be noted that prime and target
were presented in moraic kana (hiragana/katakana) script, which
does not favor individual activation of segmental elements and assuch might have led to the observed pattern of results. Furthermore, in the MORA prime group, there was a script switch
between prime and target (from katakana to hiragana) that wasabsent in the MOPE prime group (both hiragana). This might have
led to the shorter reaction times observed for this group and in turn,
due to a floor effect, might have obscured a potential priming
effect. Therefore, we decided to include romaji stimuli in Experiments 2 and 3 to determine whether or not including a script
favoring the processing of segments might lead to different results.
Experiment 4 addressed the script change issue.

Experiment 2: The Effects of Kana and Romaji
Scripts on Masked Onset PrimingThis experiment was designed to examine whether the findingsof Experiment 1 could be replicated in an experimental situationthat uses visually presented segmental information. Experiment 2
employed hiragana and romaji targets, which were all preceded byromaji primes. If the type of script used caused the absence of
onset priming in Experiment 1, Experiment 2 should remedy thissituation. If, however, Japanese do plan their speech in moraic
units, then Experiment 2 should not show any onset priming either,
despite the romaji script advantage toward the segment.
Table 2
Mean Naming Latencies (in Ms) and Error Rates (in %) in
Experiment 1 on the MOPE and MORA Groups as a Functionof Relatedness (Overlap and Control)
MOPE prime group(n 5 22)

MORA prime group(n 5 20)

Condition

RT (SD)

Error rate

RT (SD)

Error rate

Control
Overlap
Priming effect519 (59)520 (65)
21

1.6
1.8
20.2

597 (26)582 (27)
15

0.0
0.2
20.2

Note. MOPE 5 masked onset priming effect; MORA 5 mora overlap;
RT 5 reaction time; SD 5 standard deviation.

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VERDONSCHOT ET AL.

6
MethodResults

Participants.
Forty undergraduate students from Nagoya
University, Nagoya, Japan (25 female, 15 male; average age 5
22.6 years, SD 5 4.8) took part in this experiment in exchange forfinancial compensation. All participants were native speakers (andfluent readers) of Japanese and had normal or corrected-to-normal
vision.
Stimuli. Forty-two bi-moraic words were selected as targets,and an additional 42 bi-moraic, semantically unrelated words wereselected as primes (see Appendix B). Using the pairing procedurefrom Experiment 1, we combined these targets with the primes toform 168 target–prime pairs. Targets appeared either in hiragana or
in romaji (capitals). All primes were in romaji.
Design. A 2 (target type: hiragana or romaji) 3 2 (prime type:
MOPE or MORA) 3 2 (relatedness: overlap vs. control) withinsubjects factorial design was implemented. Frequent repetition oftargets and primes was avoided by subjecting each participant toonly two repetitions instead of eight per target, resulting in 84 trials
per participant. All 42 targets were presented once in romaji andonce in hiragana. To ensure that each condition for each target type
and prime type appeared equally often, we assigned participants toindividually generated, pseudo-random lists generated by E-Prime
2.0. The lists were constructed such that MORA and MOPE
conditions for the whole experiment appeared equally often pertarget type. Furthermore, in these lists phonologically or semantically related primes or targets had at least a distance of two trials
to avoid unintended priming effects. Between participants, thedesign included all of the experimental conditions. Within participants, the order of target type (romaji or hiragana) was counterbalanced.
Procedure. The apparatus was the same as in the first experiment. Participants were tested individually in a quiet room at
Nagoya University. The trial sequence was identical to that inExperiment 1. Masks, primes, and targets were displayed in Courier New font (28 pt). All items appeared in the center of the screen
as black characters on white background. Each uppercase romaji
target word covered approximately 0.95° of visual angle from aviewing distance of 60 cm. Romaji target words were four or fiveletters in length, subtending between 2.7° and 3.2° of visual angle.
Hiragana targets consisted of two mora characters and covered
about 0.95° 3 1.6° of visual angle.

Naming latencies exceeding three standard deviations per participant per condition and voice-key errors were excluded from theanalysis (1.0% of the data). As errors were few (1.3% of the data),
an error analysis was not performed. Please see Table 3 for an T3
overview of the results. There was a main effect of target type(hiragana or romaji), indicating that targets in hiragana were read
aloud 221 ms faster than targets in romaji, F1(1, 39) 5 215.10,
MSE 5 18,170.98, p , .001; F2(1, 41) 5 675.14, MSE 5
6,076.46, p , .001; min F9(1, 62) 5 163.1, p , .001. Furthermore,
there was a main effect of relatedness in the subject analysis(overlap vs. control), F1(1, 39) 5 5.48, MSE 5 3,021.98, p , .05;
F2(1, 41) 5 2.03, MSE 5 3,710.03, p 5 .161; min F9(1, 67) 5
1.48, p 5 .23. Target type interacted significantly with relatedness
in the subject analysis, F1(1, 39) 5 6.92, MSE 5 2,307.84, p ,.05, and approached significance in the item analysis, F2(1, 41) 5
3.61, MSE 5 4,258.12, p 5 .07; min F9(1, 74) 5 2.37, p 5 .13.
Given this interaction, we conducted paired t tests for each target
type, prime type, and trial type. These t tests showed that there
were no significant effects when target types were hiragana (ts ,1). When the target type was romaji, there was a significant
priming effect (33 ms) when the whole mora overlapped, t1(39) 5
2.64, SD 5 79.22, p , .05; t2(41) 5 2.02, SD 5 95.23, p , .05,
but not when only the first segment (16 ms) overlapped, t1(39) 5
1.26, SD 5 82.71, p 5 .214; t2 , 1.

Discussion
Reading romaji takes significantly more time (221 ms) thanreading hiragana. This could account for the absence of priming
effects from romaji primes during hiragana target naming. The
prime might simply be too late to exert an influence. However,when the target is also in romaji (and also takes more time to read),both prime and target are delayed, thereby again allowing for
priming effects to surface, as evidenced by our results. In the latter
case, it is again found that facilitation from priming becomessignificant only when the whole mora overlaps. We felt that theobservation of the sizable (although not significant) 16-ms difference between overlap and control prime in the MOPE part induced
the necessity of testing the romaji targets again, though this timewith hiragana primes (thereby eliminating any processing costs
due to script unfamiliarity).

Table 3
Mean Naming Latencies (in Ms) and Error Rates (in %) in Experiment 2 as a Function of Target Type (Hiragana vs. Romaji), Prime
Type (MOPE vs. MORA), and Relatedness (Overlap vs. Control)
Hiragana target
MOPE prime

Romaji target
MORA prime

MOPE prime

MORA prime

Condition

RT (SD)

Error rate

RT (SD)

Error rate

RT (SD)

Error rate

RT (SD)

Error rate

Control
Overlap
Effect527 (76)530 (89)
23

0.8
0.8
0.0

521 (87)525 (75)
24

0.0
0.8
20.8

753 (123)
737 (110)
16 (83)

3.2
1.6
1.6

765 (132)732 (134)
33

2.4
0.8
1.6

Note. MOPE 5 masked onset priming effect; MORA 5 mora overlap; RT 5 reaction time; SD 5 standard deviation.

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THE FUNCTIONAL UNIT OF JAPANESE WORD NAMING

Experiment 3: Effect of Hiragana Primes on Romaji
Targets
Experiment 2 showed that romaji targets take longer to read thanhiragana targets. No effect was found for any hiragana target
combined with romaji primes (which also took longer), but again
a MORA and not a MOPE effect was found when romaji targets
were used. In this third experiment we aimed to replicate andextend these findings by again using romaji targets, thus again
allowing the response to dictate the unit of speech planning (phonemes). However, current primes were all in hiragana, whichallows for a comparison between fast access (Experiment 3) andslow access (Experiment 2) to the prime.

7

Table 4
Mean Naming Latencies (in Ms) and Error Rates (in %) in
Experiment 3 on the Romaji Targets as a Function of Prime
Type (MOPE/MORA) and Relatedness (Overlap and Control)
MOPE prime

MORA prime

Condition

RT (SD)

Error rate

RT (SD)

Error rate

Control
Overlap
Priming effect733 (98)
744 (110)
211

2.0
1.6
0.4

761 (104)728 (107)
33

2.4
2.8
20.4

Note. MOPE 5 masked onset priming effect; MORA 5 mora overlap;
RT 5 reaction time; SD 5 standard deviation.

MethodParticipants. Thirty-one undergraduate students from Nagoya University (16 female, 15 male; average age 5 22 years,
SD 5 3.7) took part in this experiment in exchange for financial
compensation. All participants were native speakers (and fluent
readers) of Japanese and had normal or corrected-to-normal vision.
Stimuli. Forty-two bi-moraic words were selected from thesame pool as in Experiment 2 (see Appendix B). In this experiment, all targets were in romaji (letters) and all primes were in
hiragana.
Design. A 2 (prime type: MOPE or MORA) 3 2 (relatedness:overlap vs. control) within-subjects factorial design was implemented. Recurrent repetition of targets and primes was avoided bypresenting each participant with two repetitions instead of four per
target, equaling 84 trials per participant. Each participant received
two blocks of 42 trials, encompassing all 42 targets once per block.
Participants were assigned to pseudo-random lists (generated per
participant). These were constructed such that MORA and MOPE
conditions appeared equally often per group and phonologically or
semantically related primes or targets had at least a distance of two
trials. Between participants the design included all the experimental conditions, and within participants the order of blocks wascounterbalanced.
Procedure. The procedure was the same as in Experiment 2.

Results

T4

Naming latencies exceeding three standard deviations per participant per condition and voice-key errors were excluded from theanalysis (1.3% of the data). As errors were few (2.2% of the data)
and were evenly distributed across conditions, an error analysis
was not performed. See Table 4 for an overview of the results.
There was no main effect of prime type (MOPE or MORA), F1(1,30) 5 1.24, MSE 5 933.20, p 5 .274; F2(1, 41) 5 1.33, MSE 5
815.20, p 5 .256; min F9(1, 68) , 1, but there was a main effectof relatedness (overlap vs. control). Targets preceded by overlapping primes were read on average 11 ms faster than those precededby control primes, F1(1, 30) 5 5.75, MSE 5 653.30, p , .05; F2(1,41) 5 5.12, MSE 5 1,439.90, p , .05; min F9(1, 70) 5 2.71, p 5.10. To explore this further, we performed paired t tests and foundthat MOPE primes again did not supply reliable priming effects,
t1(30) 5 1.52, SD 5 42.00, p 5 .139; t2(41) 5 1.46, SD 5 50.30,
p 5 .153, but MORA overlapping primes yielded facilitation
effects in comparison to their control primes (33 ms), t1(30) 5
3.92, SD 5 47.59, p , .001; t2(41) 5 4.48, SD 5 54.77, p , .001.

Discussion
This experiment yielded essentially the same results as Experiment 2: MOPE primes do not induce a significant facilitation
effect. The results from Experiments 2 and 3 indicate that evenwhen romaji script is used to present the prime (thereby favoring
segmental processing), the functional unit of phonological encoding in Japanese is likely to be the mora, as evidenced by thesignificant CV but not C priming effects reported in the previous
three experiments. However, two main issues remained to beaddressed: (a) the script change issue of Experiment 1 (MORA:
katakana primes and hiragana targets) and (b) the fact that in moststimuli of Experiments 1–3 moras were indistinguishable fromsyllables (e.g.,/ko.to/).

Experiment 4a: Distinguishing the CV From the
Syllable: MOPE GroupA possible reason for the discrepancy between the MOPE and
MORA groups in Experiment 1 might be that in the MORA group
there was a script change (from katakana to hiragana), whereas in
the MOPE group this change was absent. We remedied this inExperiments 4a and 4b by using katakana primes and hiragana
targets in both the MOPE and MORA groups. However, a more
important issue may be the fact that in most stimuli we used in theprevious experiments the mora was indistinguishable from thesyllable. For instance, the moras /ko/ and /to/ in/ko.to/constitute two moras but also two syllables. Therefore, in Experiment 4, we included three groups of target words. In the firstgroup, bi-moraic words (where mora equals syllable) were used. In
the second and third groups, the first CV does not constitute thewhole syllable: nasal coda words (CVN; e.g., /hoN.da/ “Honda”[CVN.CV]; Group 2) and geminate obstruents, (CVQ; e.g.,/saQ.ka/ “soccer” [CVQ.CV]; Group 3). As previous experiments
never showed any sign of onset priming in Japanese, we expectedthat Experiment 4a (which employed only onset overlap primes)
would not show priming in any of the groups. Furthermore, withregard to Experiment 4b, we predicted that if the functional unit inJapanese is the mora, we would obtain CV priming effects in all
three groups, without an interaction between group and relatedness, as the priming effect should be similar between groups. In
contrast, we expected that when the previously observed priming
effects were in fact due to syllabic overlap, CV priming would

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VERDONSCHOT ET AL.

8occur only in the bi-moraic group and not the nasal coda andgeminate groups.

coda and geminate targets, which did not differ from each other.
There was no main effect of relatedness in the subjects analysis,
F1(1, 26) 5 1.70, MSE 5 678.80, p 5 .203, but it was significant
in the items analysis, F2(1, 123) 5 6.60, MSE 5 468.20, p , .05;
min F9(1, 41) 5 1.35, p 5 .25. The interaction between group andrelatedness was not significant (Fs , 1). Planned t tests showedthat there was no reliable effect of overlap for any group: bi-mora,
ts , 1; nasal coda, t1 , 1, t2(41) 5 1.4, SD 5 30.14, p 5 .169; andgeminate, t1 , 1; t2(41) 5 1.97, SD 5 34.23, p 5 .056. Overall,there seems to be no reliable effect of segment overlap on grouplevel when only the segment overlaps.

MethodParticipants.
Twenty-seven undergraduate students from
Yamaguchi University (21 female, 6 male; average age 5 22
years, SD 5 7.5) took part in this experiment in exchange forfinancial compensation. All participants were native speakers ofJapanese and had normal or corrected-to-normal vision.
Stimuli. Forty-two bi-moraic words were selected for eachgroup, totaling 126 targets (see Appendix C). Targets were all inhiragana and primes, were all in katakana. Congruent prime–target
pairs were combined such that they overlapped in the onset(MOPE).
Design. A 3 (group: bi-moraic, nasal coda, and geminate) 32 (relatedness: overlap vs. control) within-subjects factorial design
was implemented. To avoid recurrent repetition of targets andprimes, we subjected each participant to one repetition instead oftwo per target, equaling 126 trials per participant. Each participant
was subjected to two blocks of 63 trials (groups were mixed inblocks). Participants were assigned to pseudo-random lists (generated per participant), which were constructed such that groups
and conditions appeared approximately equally often per block
and phonologically or semantically related primes or targets had atleast a distance of two trials. Between participants, the design
included all the groups and experimental conditions, and within
participants the order of blocks was counterbalanced.
Procedure. The procedure was the same as in Experiment 2.
Masks, primes, and targets were displayed in Courier New font (36pt). All items appeared as black characters on white background.
Each target word covered approximately 1.3° of visual angle froma viewing distance of 60 cm. Target words were between two andfive hiragana characters in length, subtending between 1.9° and
4.7° of visual angle.

Experiment 4b: Distinguishing the CV From the
Syllable: MORA Group
MethodParticipants. Twenty-eight undergraduate students from Nagoya University (12 female, 16 male; average age 5 19 years,
SD 5 3.3) took part in this experiment in exchange for financial
compensation. All participants were native speakers of Japaneseand had normal or corrected-to-normal vision.
Stimuli.
Thirty bi-moraic words were selected for eachgroup, totaling 90 targets (see Appendix C). All targets were in
hiragana, and all primes were in katakana. Congruent prime–target
pairs were combined such that they had CV (mora) overlap.
Design. A 3 (group: bi-moraic, nasal coda, and geminate) 32 (relatedness: overlap vs. control) within-subjects factorial design
was implemented. To avoid recurrent repetition of targets andprimes, we subjected each participant to one repetition instead oftwo per target, equaling 90 trials per participant. Each participant
was subjected to two blocks of 45 trials (groups were mixed in a
block). Participants were assigned to pseudo-random lists (generated per participant), which were constructed such that groups andconditions appeared approximately equally often per block andphonologically or semantically related primes or targets had atleast a distance of two trials. Between participants the design
included all the groups and experimental conditions, and within
participants the order of blocks was counterbalanced.
Procedure. The procedure was the same as in Experiment 4a.

Results and Discussion
T5

Table 5 provides an overview of the results. Naming latencies
exceeding three standard deviations per participant per conditionand voice-key errors were excluded from the analysis (5.1% of thedata). As errors were few (0.5% of the data), an error analysis was
not performed. There was a significant main effect of group, F1(2,52) 5 7.50, MSE 5 1,178.16, p , .001; F2(2, 123) 5 4.60, MSE 52,653.40, p , .05; min F9(2, 169) 5 2.85, p 5 .06, reflecting thefact that the bi-moraic targets were named faster than the nasal

Results and Discussion
Table 6 gives an overview of the results. Naming latencies T6
exceeding three standard deviations per participant per condition

Table 5
Mean Naming Latencies (in Ms) and Error Rates (in %) in Experiment 4a as a Function ofGroup (Bi-Moraic, Nasal Coda, and Geminate) and Relatedness (Overlap and Control)
Bi-moraic

Nasal coda

Geminate

Condition

RT (SD)

Error rate

RT (SD)

Error rate

RT (SD)

Error rate

Control
Overlap
Priming effect527 (69)522 (66)
5

0.6
0.0
0.6

552 (92)547 (93)
5

0.6
1.2
20.6

545 (78)539 (84)
6

0.0
0.6
20.6

Note. RT 5 reaction time; SD 5 standard deviation.

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9Table 6
Mean Naming Latencies (in Ms) and Error Rates (in %) in Experiment 4b as a Function ofGroup (Bi-Moraic, Nasal Coda, and Geminate) and Relatedness (Overlap vs. Control)
Bi-moraic

Nasal coda

Geminate

Condition

RT (SD)

Error rate

RT (SD)

Error rate

RT (SD)

Error rate

Control
Overlap
Priming effect471 (61)456 (68)
15

0.0
0.0
0.0

501 (74)490 (77)
11

2.4
1.8
0.6

489 (69)477 (72)
12

0.6
0.0
0.6

Note. RT 5 reaction time; SD 5 standard deviation.

and voice-key errors were excluded from the analysis (2.2% of thedata). As errors were few (0.8 % of the data), an error analysis was
not performed. There was a main effect of group, F1(2, 54) 5
38.50, MSE 5 365.46, p , .001; F2(2, 87) 5 12.20, MSE 5
1,212.64, p , .001; min F9(2, 130) 5 9.26, p , .001, whichreflects significant differences in the overall means of the threegroups. Furthermore, there was a main effect of relatedness (overlap vs. control), F1(1, 27) 5 24.10, MSE 5 279.70, p , .001; F2(1,87) 5 17.20, MSE 5 379.24, p , .001; min F9(1, 97) 5 10.04,
p , .001, reflecting the fact that on average targets that overlappedwith the prime were named 13 ms faster. Most important, there
was no interaction between group and relatedness (Fs , 1),
indicating that the effect of relatedness holds for all target groups.
This was further confirmed by planned t tests, which showed thatthe effect of overlap held for each group: bi-mora, t1(27) 5 3.05,
SD 5 25.93, p , .01; t2(29) 5 2.86, SD 5 27.45, p , .01; nasal
coda, t1(27) 5 2.54, SD 5 22.72, p , .05; t2(29) 5 2.30; SD 5
23.34, p , .05; and geminate, t1(27) 5 3.07, SD 5 20.95, p , .01;t2(29) 5 2.10, SD 5 31.26, p , .05.
Before accepting the conclusion that the mora and not thephoneme is the functional unit of language production in Japanese,
we consider three points. The first point is that the conclusion that
there is no MOPE in Japanese corresponds to the null hypothesis.
Of course, conventional significance testing cannot state the evidence in favor of a null hypothesis: Nonsignificant p values
indicate “failures to reject” the null hypothesis, not the support ofit. However, recent developments in the Bayesian data analysis
technique (e.g., Dienes, 2008; Rouder, Speckman, Sun, & Morey,2009) have contributed to the interpretation of null results in theform of computation of the Bayes factor. The Bayes factor isgenerally interpreted as the weight of evidence provided by thedata and is essentially an odds ratio, ranging between 0 to infinity.
A Bayes factor of 1 means that the data provide equal evidence insupport of the null and alternative hypotheses. Values greater than
1 favor the null hypothesis, and values less than 1 favor thealternative hypothesis. According to Jeffreys’ (1961) classification
scheme, a Bayes factor between 1 and 3 would constitute anecdotal
evidence for the null hypothesis, one between 3 and 10 would besubstantial evidence, and one between 10 and 30 would be strong
evidence.
Although we are aware that the use of Bayes factors is not
firmly established in psycholinguistic literature, we do feel that inthis case it is reasonable to report them as we specifically claim theabsence of onset priming (and not merely a reduction). We therefore computed the Bayes factor for the null hypothesis (i.e., that
there is no MOPE) for each experiment, using the Bayes factor

calculator provided by Rouder et al. (2009; available at http://
pcl.missouri.edu/bayesfactor). Bayes factors based on the
Jeffreys–Zellner–Siow priors (recommended by Rouder et al. as a“default Bayes factor” requiring minimal assumptions) are presented in Table 7. As effect sizes for the MOPE are generally T7small, we used a scaled factor according to the effect size for
MOPE calculated from Kinoshita (2000; Experiment 2) of r 5 .58
instead of the standard r 5 1. According to Rouder et al. (2009, p.
233), this is acceptable when small effect sizes are expected.
As shown in Table 7, in all cases (except for the items factor in
the geminate part of Experiment 4), the Bayes factor favored thenull hypothesis, with the evidence approaching or surpassing “substantial” in many cases. We therefore include these Bayes factor
values in our argument that most of our data indicate that there is
no MOPE in Japanese.
The second point is that we might not have obtained onset
priming in Japanese due to a lack of power. As the onset priming
effect might be small and hard to detect in Japanese, we pooled all
MOPE data from our experiments (separately for hiragana andromaji targets).2 On these pooled data, we performed a repeated- Fn2
measures analysis of variance with relatedness (overlap, control)
as a within-subjects factor and experiment (1, 2, 4 [for hiragana
targets] and 2, 3 [for romaji targets]) as a between-subjects andbetween-items factor.
For the hiragana targets (with the three groups for Experiment 4
pooled together), there was no main effect of relatedness (Fs , 1)or experiment (in the subjects analysis), F1 , 1, F2(1, 123) 5 3.80,
MSE 5 1,647.42, p 5 .03. Nor was there an interaction between
relatedness and experiment, F1 , 1; F2(2, 123) 5 1.02, MSE 5
513.13, p 5 .363.
For the romaji targets, there was no main effect of relatedness(Fs , 1) or experiment (Fs , 1); nor was there an interaction withexperiment, F1(1, 69) 5 2.95, MSE 5 2,316.82, p 5 .090; F2(1,82) 5 1.66, MSE 5 3,731.78, p 5 .201; min F9(1, 145) 5 1.06,
p 5 .304. Therefore, increasing power by pooling the data for
onset related stimuli (MOPE parts) did not lead to reliable priming
effects, either.
A third point worth mentioning (which was also raised in the
introduction and for Experiment 1) is that the moraic nature of thekana script used in Experiments 4a and 4b might favor the processing from orthography to phonology. Although we cannot unequivocally refute the claim that the use of kana script has been
responsible for the obtained pattern of effects, we do believe that2

We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this analysis to us.

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10

Table 7
Bayes Factor Values for the Null Hypothesis for MOPE (Scaled
JNZ Factor With r 5 .58)
Experiment and condition

Subjects

Items

Experiment 1
Experiment 2
Hiragana target
Romaji target
Experiment 3
Experiment 4
Bi-moraNasal coda
Geminate

3.68

4.34

4.42
2.41
1.62

4.92
3.86
1.93

2.75
3.36
3.35

3.24
2.08
0.91

Note. MOPE 5 masked onset priming effect; JNZ 5 Jeffreys–Zellner–
Siow.

our Experiments 2 and 3 reasonably demonstrated that whenromanized Japanese (romaji) targets are employed, no reliablepriming occurs for the segment.

General Discussion
Many studies using different paradigms have shown that thesegment (e.g., phoneme) can be conceived of as an independentfunctional element of speech production planning in many alphabetic languages (e.g., implicit priming/preparation effect: Meyer,
1991; masked onset priming effect: Forster & Davis, 1991; Kinoshita, 2003; Schiller, 2004). Studies investigating other nonalphabetic languages have found that this unit might be language
specific. In Mandarin Chinese, for example, segment preparation
was absent but syllable priming was present (Chen et al., 2002).
For our target language, Japanese, contrasting patterns were reported in comprehension tasks (Cutler & Otake, 1994; Otake &Cutler, 2003), and there is currently only one empirical paper to befound regarding production tasks (Kureta et al., 2006). Our aim in
the present research was to further examine a possible role for thesegment as independent functional unit in Japanese speech production by making use of the well-established masked priming
paradigm.
The outcomes of four experiments support previous findings
obtained by Kureta et al. (2006), who proposed that the mora andnot the segment is the functional unit of phonological encoding inJapanese. Introducing romaji stimuli, which by their visual characteristics were assumed to favor segmental processing (our Experiments 2 and 3), also did not lead to onset priming. This
indicates that the observed absence of onset priming (e.g., ourfindings and those of Kureta et al., 2006) cannot have been due tothe fact that kana and/or kanji scripts were used. We ruled out thepossibility that the absence of MOPE was due to the nature oftarget script governing the unit of phonological encoding, as presenting the target in romaji (in which the orthography-tophonology mapping process proceeds by letter-to-segment) did not
produce MOPE.
It is important to note that each mora contains more phonological content than a phoneme. Consider, for instance, results by
Schiller (2004), who found that when two segments overlap, morepriming is obtained. For instance, /ba/ produced more priming than/b/ when naming the word BALLET (“ballet”), but /br/ also pro-

duced more priming than /b/ for a complex onset word such as
BROEDER (“brother”).3 That is, the finding of MORA priming Fn3
but not MOPE may simply reflect a greater amount of phonological overlap, not the special status of the mora as a functional unitof language production in Japanese. An experiment in which theamount of initial phonemic overlap is increased without increasing
the number of mora is needed to test this. Unfortunately, this is noteasy to realize in Japanese, due the absence of consonant clusters.
The closest match to such an experiment would be the inclusion of
the palatal glide (denoted j), which is occasionally situated between particular initial consonants and their subsequent vowels. In
that case, the initial Cj cluster—for instance, /ky/ of a word suchas /kyu.u/ (CjV.R) “sudden, haste”; two moras, namely, /kyu/(CjV) and a long vowel (R)—would contain more phonologicalcontent than the phoneme /k/ in a CV mora structure such as /ku/
does. This has thus far not been tested with the masked priming
paradigm; however, Kureta et al. (2006; Experiment 2) specificallytested this possibility using the preparation paradigm. They did not
find significant preparation effects even when an additional segment (i.e., palatal glide) was added to the prevocalic consonant,which favors the hypothesis that the mora is the functional unit inJapanese speech production. Still, additional masked onset priming
experiments using Cj initial overlap might be warranted to provide
information as to whether the absence of the greater overlap (asfound by Kureta et al., 2006) also generalizes to masked priming.
A recent proposal considering functional unit size (O’Seaghdha,Chen, & Chen, 2010) puts forward a new term called the proximate units principle. In short, they proposed that “proximate units(PU) are the first selectable phonological units below the level of
the word/morpheme” (O’Seaghdha et al., 2010, p. 285). They
additionally put forward that languages may differ in their specificproximate unit sizes. In Dutch and English the PU would be thesegment, in Chinese it would be the syllable (Chen et al., 2002),
whereas in Japanese the PU would be the mora (Kureta et al.,2006, and our current findings). One can infer from this proposalthat across-language comparisons might also show different typesof speech errors. For instance, Japanese speakers may be lessprone to make phoneme exchange errors (e.g., spoonerisms), as
their proximate unit is larger (e.g., a mora). Indeed, evidence
provided by Kubozono (1989) shows that in Japanese most speecherrors occur at mora, not segment or syllable, boundaries. Aninteresting question (for further examination) then arises regarding
how bilingual speakers of languages differing in proximate unit
(e.g., Japanese and English) encode the functional unit of theirsecond language. Would, for instance, Japanese/English versus
English/Japanese bilinguals show diverging results on masked andimplicit priming tasks, or could the proximate unit be switcheddepending on the language in use? Yet another possibility might beeven the transfer of the proximate unit from, for example, the firstto the second language, depending on the task at hand.
In conclusion, in line with those of Kureta et al. (2006), ourresults corroborate the view that, in Japanese, moras and notsegments or syllables are the functional (or proximate) units. That
3
Note, however, that the increase in priming due to an additional
overlapping phoneme beyond the onset (e.g., /sif-SIB/ vs. /suf-SIB/) issmall and may not be significant (e.g., Kinoshita, 2000; Mousikou,
Coltheart, & Saunders, 2010).

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is, they are the units that play a crucial role in the construction of
the phonological form of a word in speech production.

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Appendix A
Stimulus Materials From Experiment 1
MOPE partTarget“kaze”“kiku”“kuni”“kesa”“koma”“sara”“shiki”“sushi”“seki”“sofu”“mado”“mimi”“mushi”“meshi”“mochi”“natsu”“niwa”“numa”“neko”“nodo”“raku”“rika”“rusu”“retsu”“roji”“take”“tetsu”“tori”“hana”“hifu”“hebi”“hori”“batsu”“biwa”“buta”“betsu”“boku”“gaka”“gishi”“guchi”“geki”“gogo”MORA part

Onset prime

Control prime“koto”“kura”“kami”“kika”“ketsu”“shika”“same”“sen”“soto”“sumi”“mei”“mame”“mori”“mura”“miko”“nori”“nuka”“netsu”“nami”“niku”“ruri”“ren”“riku”“roku”“rachi”“teki”“tomi”“taku”“hoku”“hara”“hiko”“hei”“boshi”“bara”“bika”“buka”“bei”“gimu”“gumi”“gaku”“gomi”“gei”“soto”“mura”“nami”“bika”“netsu”“chika”“mame”“ren”“koto”“gumi”“bei”“same”“nori”“kura”“hiko”“mori”“buka”“ketsu”“kami”“riku”“kuri”“sen”“niku”“hoku”“sachi”“heki”“gomi”“gaku”“roku”“bara”“miko”“gei”“toshi”“hara”“kika”“nuka”“mei”“jimu”“sumi”“taku”“tomi”“hei”?

Note. MOPE 5 masked onset priming effect; MORA 5 mora overlap.

(Appendices continue)

Overlap prime

Control prime“kui”“ketsu”“koto”“same”“shika”“sumi”“rui”“netsu”“soto”“mame”“chika”“gumi”“soto”“mame”“miko”“koto”“same”“hiko”

“mei”

“gei”

“nami”“niku”“nuka”“netsu”“nori”“tami”“riku”“buka”“ketsu”“mori”

“rui”

“kui”

“roku”“tami”“teki”“tomi”“hara”“hiko”“hoku”“nami”“heki”“gomi”“bara”“miko”“hoku”“bara”“bika”“buka”“roku”“hara”“kika”“nuka”“boshi”“toshi”“gumi”“gei”“gomi”“sumi”“mei”“tomi”

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13

Appendix B
Stimulus Materials From Experiments 2 and 3
MOPE partTarget“kaze”“kiku”“kuni”“kesa”“koma”“sara”“shiki”“sushi”“seki”“sofu”“mado”“mimi”“mushi”“meshi”“mochi”“natsu”“niwa”“numa”“neko”“nodo”“raku”“rika”“rusu”“retsu”“roji”“take”“tetsu”“tori”“hana”“hifu”“hebi”“hori”“batsu”“biwa”“buta”“betsu”“boku”“gaka”“gishi”“guchi”“geki”“gogo”MORA part

Onset prime

Control prime

Overlap prime

Control prime“koto”“kura”“kami”“kika”“ketsu”“shika”“same”“sen”“soto”“sumi”“mei”“mame”“mori”“mura”“miko”“nori”“nuka”“netsu”“nami”“niku”“ruri”“ren”“riku”“roku”“rachi”“teki”“tomi”“taku”“hoku”“hara”“hiko”“hei”“boshi”“bara”“bika”“buka”“bei”“gimu”“gumi”“gaku”“gomi”“gei”“soto”“mura”“nami”“bika”“netsu”“chika”“mame”“ren”“koto”“gumi”“bei”“same”“nori”“kura”“hiko”“mori”“buka”“ketsu”“kami”“riku”“kuri”“sen”“niku”“hoku”“sachi”“heki”“gomi”“gaku”“roku”“bara”“miko”“gei”“toshi”“hara”“kika”“nuka”“mei”“jimu”“sumi”“taku”“tomi”“hei”“kami”“kika”“kura”“ketsu”“koto”“same”“shika”“sumi”“sen”“soto”“mame”“miko”“mura”“mei”“mori”“nami”“niku”“nuka”“netsu”“nori”“rachi”“riku”“ruri”“ren”“roku”“taku”“teki”“tomi”“hara”“hiko”“hei”“hoku”“bara”“bika”“buka”“bei”“boshi”“gaku”“gimu”“gumi”“gei”“gomi”“nami”“bika”“mura”“netsu”“soto”“mame”“chika”“gumi”“ren”“koto”“same”“hiko”
ߊࠄ “kura”“bei”“nori”“kami”“riku”“buka”“ketsu”“mori”“sachi”“niku”“kuri”“sen”“hoku”“gaku”“heki”“gomi”“bara”“miko”“gei”“roku”“hara”“kika”“nuka”“mei”“toshi”“taku”“jimu”“sumi”“hei”“tomi”

Note. MOPE 5 masked onset priming effect; MORA 5 mora overlap.

(Appendices continue)

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Appendix C
Stimulus Materials From Experiments 4a and 4b
MOPE part (4a)Target“kaze”“kiku”“kuni”“kesa”“koma”“sara”“shiki”“sushi”“seki”“sofu”“mado”“mimi”“mushi”“meshi”“mochi”“natsu”“niwa”“numa”“neko”“nodo”“raku”“rika”“rusu”“retsu”“roji”“take”“tetsu”“tori”“hana”“hifu”“hebi”“hori”“batsu”“biwa”“buta”“betsu”“boku”“gaka”“gishi”“guchi”“geki”“gogo”“kanji”“kinshi”“kunshi”“kenka”“kondo”“sanso”“shinka”“sunka”“senshi”“sonkei”“manga”“minwa”

MORA part (4b)Onset prime

Control prime“koto”“kura”“kami”“kika”“ketsu”“shika”“same”“sen”“soto”“sumi”“mei”“mame”“mori”“mura”“miko”“nori”“nuka”“netsu”“nami”“niku”“ruri”“ren”“riku”“roku”“rachi”“teki”“tomi”“taku”“hoku”“hara”“hiko”“hei”“boshi”“bara”“bika”“buka”“bei”“gimu”“gumi”“gaku”“gomi”“gei”“koto”“kura”“kami”“kika”“ketsu”“shika”“same”“sen”“soto”“sumi”“mei”“mame”“soto”“mura”“nami”“bika”“netsu”“chika”“mame”“ren”“koto”“gumi”“bei”“same”“nori”“kura”“hiko”“mori”“buka”“ketsu”“kami”“riku”“kuri”“sen”“niku”“hoku”“sachi”“heki”“gomi”“gaku”“roku”“bara”“miko”“gei”“toshi”“hara”“kika”“nuka”“mei”“jimu”“sumi”“taku”“tomi”“hei”“soto”“mura”“nami”“bika”“netsu”“chika”“mame”“ren”“koto”“gumi”“bei”“same”(Appendices continue)

Overlap prime

Control prime“kui”“ketsu”“koto”“same”“shika”“sumi”“rui”“netsu”“soto”“mame”“chika”“gumi”“soto”“mame”“miko”“koto”“same”“hiko”

“mei”

“gei”

“nami”“niku”“nuka”“netsu”“nori”“tami”“riku”“buka”“ketsu”“mori”

“rui”

“kui”

“roku”“tami”“teki”“tomi”“hara”“hiko”“hoku”“nami”“heki”“gomi”“bara”“miko”“hoku”“bara”“bika”“buka”“roku”“hara”“kika”“nuka”“boshi”“toshi”“gumi”“gei”“gomi”“sumi”“mei”“tomi”“kui”“ketsu”“koto”“same”“shika”“sumi”“rui”“netsu”“soto”“mame”“chika”“gumi”“soto”“mame”“miko”“koto”“same”“hiko”

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Appendix C (continued)
MOPE part (4a)Target“munzu”“menkyo”“monku”“nanban”“ninki”“nunchaku”“nendo”“nonki”“ranshi”“rinji”“runba”“renga”“rongi”“tango”“tenshi”“tonbo”“hanko”“hindo”“henka”“honya”“banchi”“binsen”“bunya”“benri”“bonchi”“ganso”“ginka”“gunji”“genshi”“gonge”“kakki”“kippu”“kusshin”“kekka”“kokki”“sakka”“shippo”“sukkiri”“sesshi”“sokki”“maccha”“mittsu”“muttsu”“mekki”“mokka”“nattou”“nikki”“nutto”“nekki”“nottori”“rakka”

MORA part (4b)Onset prime

Control prime“mori”“mura”“miko”“nori”“nuka”“netsu”“nami”“niku”“ruri”“ren”“riku”“roku”“rachi”“teki”“tomi”“taku”“hoku”“hara”“hiko”“hei”“boshi”“bara”“bika”“buka”“bei”“gimu”“gumi”“gaku”“gomi”“gei”“koto”“kura”“kami”“kika”“ketsu”“shika”“same”“sen”“soto”“sumi”“mei”“mame”“mori”“mura”“miko”“nori”“nuka”“netsu”“nami”“niku”“ruri”“nori”“kura”“hiko”“mori”“buka”“ketsu”“kami”“vriku”“kuri”“sen”“niku”“hoku”“sachi”“heki”“gomi”“gaku”“roku”“bara”“miko”“gei”“toshi”“hara”“kika”“nuka”“mei”“jimu”“sumi”“taku”“tomi”“hei”“soto”“mura”“nami”“bika”“netsu”“chika”“mame”“ren”“koto”“gumi”“bei”“same”“nori”“kura”“hiko”“mori”“buka”“ketsu”“kami”“riku”“kuri”(Appendices continue)

Overlap prime

Control prime

“mei”

“gei”

“nami”“niku”“nuka”“netsu”“nori”“tami”“riku”“buka”“ketsu”“mori”

“rui”

“kui”

“roku”“tami”“teki”“tomi”“hara”“hiko”“hoku”“nami”“heki”“gomi”“bara”“miko”“hoku”“bara”“bika”“buka”“roku”“hara”“kika”“nuka”“boshi”“toshi”“gumi”“gei”“gomi”“sumi”“mei”“tomi”“kui”“ketsu”“koto”“same”“shika”“sumi”“rui”“netsu”“soto”“mame”“chika”“gumi”“soto”“mame”“miko”“koto”“same”“hiko”

“mei”

“gei”

“nami”“niku”“nuka”“netsu”“nori”“tami”“riku”“buka”“ketsu”“mori”

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Appendix C (continued)

MOPE part (4a)Target“rippa”“rukkusu”“rettou”“roppu”“tatta”“teppou”“totte”“happa”“hikkoshi”“hettsui”“hotto”“batta”“bikkuri”“busshi”“bessou”“bocchan”“gakki”“gisshiri”“guttari”“geppu”“gokkan”
Note.

MORA part (4b)Onset prime

Control prime“ren”“riku”“roku”“rachi”“teki”“tomi”“taku”“hoku”“hara”“hiko”“hei”“boshi”“bara”“bika”“buka”“bei”“gimu”“gumi”“gaku”“gomi”“gei”“sen”“niku”“hoku”“sachi”“heki”“gomi”“gaku”“roku”“bara”“miko”“gei”“toshi”“hara”“kika”“nuka”“mei”“jimu”“sumi”“taku”“tomi”“hei”

Overlap prime

Control prime

“rui”

“kui”

“roku”“tami”“teki”“tomi”“hara”“hiko”“hoku”“nami”“heki”“gomi”“bara”“miko”“hoku”“bara”“bika”“buka”“roku”“hara”“kika”“nuka”“boshi”“toshi”“gumi”“gei”“gomi”“sumi”“mei”“tomi”

MOPE 5 masked onset priming effect; MORA 5 mora overlap.

Received October 8, 2010
Revision received April 4, 2011
Accepted May 3, 2011 n

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