Abstract

Two experiments were planned to investigate the processing unit of Hangul syllable blocks using the task to judge whether a syllable is being used or not. Eighty-four syllable blocks were sampled and used from two kinds of syllable block types, horizontal vowels with finals and vertical vowels with finals, and three levels of syllable use frequency, high, middle, and low. Experiment 1 manipulated the stimulus intensity of initials and medials in a syllable body independently, and experiment 2 the stimulus intensity of syllable bodies and finals independently. Under the assumption that the intensity manipulation would have an effect on the grouping of parts in a syllable block, it could be concluded that the two parts are processed in a group if they show better performance when their stimulus intensities are equal than when unequal. The results showed that not only initials and medials (Exp. 1) but also syllable bodies and finals (Exp. 2) made shorter response time when their stimulus intensity were equal than when unequal. This indicates that both syllable bodies and syllable blocks are processed in a whole in Hangul perception. And syllable blocks with vertical vowels and finals were perceived better than those with horizontal vowels and finals. An issue about the processing unit of Hangul perception was discussed.