A study on the cognitive of complexity and difficulty of Chinese characters when reading and recognizing

摘要

The Index of cognitive Information Complexity (C_(info)) and the Index of cognitive Information Difficulty (D_(info)) are measured at the psychological level for the application of learning and design when people are reading and recognizing the characters; thus, how to effectively monitor the information complexity and difficulty for the purpose of educational learning and design becomes an essential issue. This study combines information theory and Fitts' Law to propose the concept of Information Mass (Minfo) and through the test of the C_(info) and D_(info) toward the M_(info) of Chinese characters, the subjects are surveyed for measuring the complexity and difficulty of 218 selected Chinese characters. The results indicate that there is no significant discrepancy in the C_(info) of genders. The result of regression analysis indicates that the correlation coefficient of logarithm value of M_(info) and C_(info) is 0.684 and RSQ equals to 0.468. On the other hand, the Paired-Samples T-test shows the discrepancy of the Anfo on Chinese characters between and among different groups. Overall, the M_(info) threshold value to recognize the Anfo on Chinese characters between male and female subjects reaches to 0.017; among it, the M_(info) threshold value for male and female high school students is 0.06; for male and female university students is 0.01. The average value of Anfo between genders found in regression analysis indicates the correlation coefficient of M_(info) and Anfo is 0.861 and RSQ is 0.741. From results of this study, subjects are shown to have closer relations between M_(info) and Anfo than that of M_(info) and C_(info). In the other words, the concept to apply M_(info) gives reasonable explanation to the difficulty of Chinese characters and the model of linear regression serves the function for the reference of educational learning and design.