Abstract: Visual form memory is critical for the acquisition of written language. Previous studies on visual word learning and gender differences in face memory have indicated that encoding strategy (i.e., whole-based encoding and part-based encoding) may affect the memory of visual stimuli. The whole- and part-based encoding respectively mean participants’ specific focus on the whole information and part information during encoding. Nevertheless, it still lacks of direct experimental evidence for the impact of encoding strategy on visual form memory. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore the impact of encoding strategy on visual form memory and its consistency across different writing systems. To address the above questions, the present study conducted two experiments, in which the study-test paradigm and within-subject design were used. Experiment 1 examined the impact of encoding strategy on visual form memory, and Experiment 2 further examined the consistency of the encoding-strategy effect across different writing systems. During the study phase, participants were asked to memorize the visual forms of 80 Korean Hangul characters in Experiment 1 and those of 96 English pseudowords in Experiment 2. Both experiments consisted of two conditions (i.e., whole-based encoding and part-based encoding). The learning materials in the two conditions and the order of the two conditions were counterbalances across participants. The whole- and part-based encoding strategies were induced by including randomly-presented trials for whole-word judgment or unit judgment in the learning sequence, respectively. Specifically, participants were instructed to judge whether the probe stimulus was the same as the target word in whole-based encoding condition and whether the probe stimulus was a unit of the target word in part-based encoding condition. A recognition memory test was administered one hour after the learning phase. To ensure that whole- and part-based encoding strategies were respectively induced by the whole-word judgment task and unit judgment task, an interview on each participant’s encoding strategies was additionally conducted in Experiment 2. Results on interview showed that the whole- and part-based encoding strategies were successfully induced by whole-word judgment and unit judgment, respectively. More importantly, in both experiments, we found that participants showed advantages in visual form memory in the part-based encoding condition relative to whole-based encoding condition. Furthermore, the advantages for part-based encoding over whole-based encoding were evident for both Korean words and English pseudowords. In other words, the memory superiority for part-based encoding were consistent across different writing systems (i.e., logographic and alphabetic writings). These results suggest that part-based encoding relative to whole-based encoding facilitates visual form memory. In conclusion, the present study investigated the impact of encoding strategy on visual form memory and its cross-language consistency by manipulating part- and whole-based encoding during the learning phase. This study provided direct evidence for the advantages for part-based encoding relative to whole-based encoding, and revealed that such memory advantages were consistent across different writing systems. The advantages for part-based encoding can be explained by hemispheric specialization view or levels of processing view, and have important implications for word learning and teaching, especially for the learning of words with complicated visual forms such as Chinese and Korean words.

Key words: whole-based encoding, part-based encoding, visual form memory, language learning

摘要： 采用学习-再认范式，分别以韩字、英文假词为实验材料，考察了编码方式对陌生字形记忆的影响。在学习阶段，通过随机呈现整体和部分探测刺激，引导被试分别以整体编码和部分编码方式学习陌生字形，并在学习结束后一小时进行再认记忆测试。结果发现，无论以韩字还是以英文假词为材料，部分编码条件的记忆成绩均显著好于整体编码。该结果说明部分编码相比于整体编码能促进陌生字形记忆，并且这种优势效应具有跨文字系统的一致性。

关键词: 整体编码, 部分编码, 字形记忆, 语言学习