Earticle

This paper aims to explore how Korean-Chinese bilingual speakers process Korean final ending -ko. Korean-Chinese bilingual speakers from Yanbian participated in the masked priming experiments through a word judgment task. The masked priming experiments were designed to compare the subjects’ response under three different prime-target conditions: Identical Condition, Unrelated Condition, and Test Condition. The participants’ response time in the experiments was statistically analyzed in two different ways: i.e., subject (F1) analyses and item (F2) analyses. The results of both the subject analyses and the item analyses revealed full priming effects, as is usually found in native speakers’ morphological processing. These findings indicate that Chinese-Korean bilingual speakers are sensitive to each combining morpheme of morphologically complex words including Korean final ending -ko and their processing of the words are not dependent upon the lexical storage of the full form.

This paper reports results from two types of priming experiments (i.e., masked and cross-modal priming experiments) which compare Chinese L2 learners’ morphological processing of a Korean verbal suffix -ko with adult native speakers of Korean. L1/L2 differences were found in both the masked and cross-modal priming experiments: Full priming effects were found in the masked priming experiment and partial priming effects in the cross-modal priming experiment in L1, while weak or no priming effects were found in both types of priming experiments of L2. These findings indicate that L2 learners of Korean are less sensitive to morphological structure than native speakers and dependent on the lexical storage of the full form. This study also provided evidence for the non-difference between the masked priming and the cross-modal priming experiments both in L1 and L2.

반복 점화 과제를 이용하여 고유어 합성어의 형태소 처리와 표기 처리를 조사하였다. 실험 1은 단일어, 합성어, 무관련의 세 가지의 점화어 유형을 어두 위치에서 조작하고, 세 가지의 자극 개시 간격(SOA)에 따른 표기 처리의 변화 양상을 관찰하였다. 점화어와 표적어 간의 표기 중복은 SOA가 짧은 조건에서는 촉진 효과를, 긴 조건에서는 억제 효과를 산출하였다. 실험 2에서는 고유어의 형태소 처리를 다루었다. 형태소 중복, 표기 중복, 무관련의 세 가지의 점화어 유형을 어두와 어말 위치에서 조작하였고, 세 가지의 자극 개시 간격을 사용하여 자극쌍들을 제시하였다. 어두와 어말 위치 모두에서 그리고 세 가지 SOA 조건 모두에서 유의한 형태소 점화 효과가 나타났으며, 표기 억제 효과는 나타나지 않았다. 실험 1의 표기 촉진 효과와 실험 2의 형태소 촉진 효과는 본 연구에서 처음으로 관찰된 것으로서, 한자어를 사용한 선행 연구들의 결과는 한자어의 어휘적 특성에 기인한 것으로 모든 어종으로 일반화하기에는 문제가 있음을 시사한다.

Using the repetition priming paradigm the author investigated orthographic and morphological processing of native Korean words. In Experiment 1, monomorphemic, bimorphemic, and unrelated primes which shared an initial syllable with a target word were found to bring about facilitation for masked priming condition but inhibition for long SOA condition. In Experiment 2 morphological processing of native Korean words was examined with morphological, orthographic, and unrelated prime-target pairs. The hypothesis that size and direction of morphological priming is dependent on lexical characteristics of stimuli was also tested. Significant morphological priming was found irrespective of the position of a morpheme shared by prime and target on the three different SOAs, but orthographic inhibition was not found to be significant in any condition. The study succeeded in discovering orthographic facilitation and morphological facilitation in Korean word recognition for the first time, and this suggests that the failure to find morphological priming in previous studies might be closely related with the lexical characteristics of Sino-Korean words used as their stimuli. Based on the results, the author suggests that morphological priming is hard to find because of slow morphological processing and inhibitory orthographic processing resulting from ambiguous Kulja-morpheme correspondence of Sino-Korean words. Differences among word types and their consequences in lexical processing were discussed.

사이시옷 합성어의 재인에서 형태소 처리의 특징을 밝히기 위해 구성 성분 점화법을 이용하여 실험을 실시하였다. 사이시옷 합성어의 제1 구성성분을 점화어로 제공하였으며, 사이시옷 유지, 사이시옷 제거, 무관련 통제 단어의 3가지 점화 조건이 표적어의 어휘판단에 미치는 영향을 비교하였다. 실험 결과, 2음절 합성어에서는 점화 효과가 나타나지 않았으나, 3음절 합성어에서는 사이시옷 유지/제거에 관계없이 구성형태소 점화효과가 나타났다. 실험 결과를 바탕으로 한국어 심성어휘집과 단어재인과정에서 형태소 표상과 처리에 대해 논의하였다.

An experiment was conducted to examine the morphological processing in visual recognition of Korean compound words with saisios. Saisios is one single consonant inserted between constituent morphemes of a compound when a phonological change takes place for the compound. Using the constituent priming method, for each trial, either the first constituent morpheme or an unrelated word was presented masked prior to the presentation of a compound target. The results showed no priming effects for bisyllabic compounds, but significant priming effects for trisyllabic compounds irrespective of whether the saisios was removed from the prime or not. Based on the results, the role of morphology in the representation and processing of Korean compound words was discussed.

시각적 단어 인지는 표기 체계에 따라 다르다. 본 연구는 한국어 단어의 인지에서 형태소의 표상과 처리를 다루었다. 한국어에서의 형태소 표상과 처리에 관한 선행 연구들은, 다른 언어에서와는 달리, 형태소 점화 효과를 관찰하지 못 하였다. 본 연구는 형태소 점화 효과의 부재가 표기 반복의 억제 효과에 의해 상쇄된 것이라고 가정하고, 이를 검증하기 위해 두 개의 실험을 실시하였다. 실험 1에서는, 2음절 한자어를 표적어로 사용하고, 점화어 유형(형태소 반복, 표기 반복, 중립)과 반복 위치(동일, 상이)를 조작하였다. 어휘 판단 시간의 분석 결과, 반복 위치가 상이한 경우에 한하여 형태소 점화 효과가 유의하게 나타났다. 실험 2는 두음법칙이 적용되는 단어를 실험자극으로 하여 실험 1의 결과를 재확인하였다. 실험 1과 2의 결과는, 한국어의 시각적 인지에서 형태소 표상과 처리의 실재를 지지하였다. 본 연구의 결과와 선행연구들의 결과에 근거하여, 한자어의 인지에서 형태소의 처리에 대해서 논의하였다.

This research was conducted to investigate morphological representation and processing of words printed in Hangul. Previous studies in Korean language have produced different results from other languages―inhibitory orthographic priming effects but no significant morphological ones. To test our hypothesis that Korean morphological processing is robust but its effects are blocked by orthographic processing, we manipulated spatial positions of shared constituents in primes and targets. In Experiment 1 using the immediate repetition priming technique with bisyllabic Sino-Korean words, morphological and orthographic priming effects were found to be modulated by spatial position of shared constituents. At the different constituent positions morphological priming effects were facilitatory but orthographic ones were null; at the same constituent positions morphological priming effects were null but orthographic ones were inhibitory. Experiment 2 also confirmed the results of Experiment 1 with the bisyllabic stimuli whose onsets change due to onset restriction. Findings are discussed in terms of how morphological and orthographic information interacts in reading Sino-Korean words.

Park, Haeil. 2011. Neural Correlates of the Perception of Lexical Levels in English. Korean Journal of Linguistics, 36-4, 953-977. The primary aim of the present study is to explore the relationship between derivation levels and neural patterns by investigating how level 1 and level 2 derivational forms are processed in the brain using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) technology. During an auditory discrimination task, more of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (STG) were involved in the perception of level 2 words relative to level 1 words, with none of the areas activated for the level 1 vs. level 2 contrast although the left STG was activated for the level 1 vs. nonspeech comparison. These results show that level 2 words are perceived through a morphological/rule-based analysis of their stem + affix structure, whereas level 1 words are stored and retrieved as a whole, consistent with the “dual-system” (DS) theory postulating two distinct systems in charge of the perception of regular and irregular inflections. Additionally, the contrast analysis of each speech condition relative to nonspeech baseline elicits stronger effects in the left posterior STG, the left premotor area, the left supramarginal gyrus, and the bilateral middle temporal gyrus, which confirms a common speech perception network as revealed by previous neuroimaging studies on speech perception. (Myongji University)

To improve the speed of iris localization, an iris localization algorithm based on the morphological processing is proposed with fast speed. Firstly, pupil area is segmented from eye image by thresholding, to remove eyelash noise and other noises from binaryzation pupil area by morphological open operation. Then, a series of structure element of radius increasing is used to make morphological erode operation on pupil area to localize roughly the inner boundary of the iris. Finally, calculus operator is employed to accurately localize the inner and outer iris boundary. 108 iris images from CASIA (Version 1.0) iris database are used to do iris localization experiments. The localization accurate rate of the proposed algorithm, calculus operator and hough transform is 97.2%, 90.3% and 92.1% respectively. Experiment results have showed that the proposed algorithm has a high performance on speed and precision with strong robustness to the different quality iris images.

Despite the recognized importance of morphological knowledge to literacy outcomes such as vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension, two of its subconstructs? morphological awareness and morphological processing?have received comparatively little attention. In response, the aim of the study reported here was to examine how the relationships between morphological awareness and morphological processing, especially in terms of morphological transparency and morphological frequency, contribute to the vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension of 62 native Korean-speaking secondary school students?27 eighth-graders and 35 tenth-graders? learning English as a foreign language. The students’ performance on the Test of Morphological Structure and the Word Reading Test was assessed to gauge their compounding awareness, inflectional awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension. The results indicated that the students’ performance was varied depending on morphological transparency and frequency. In addition, it was not morphological processing, but rather morphological awareness that explained variances in vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension, when compounding awareness and inflectional awareness were controlled for. This paper discusses what such findings imply for teaching English as a foreign language to Korean learners.

The comprehension and production of second language (L2) is a key factor in understanding the course of L2 development. Several accounts have been posited to explain the differences in the L1 and L2 processing, including the minimum involvement of morphological parsing and the L1 interference. However, the evidence is not sufficient to be conclusive. This paper investigates and compares L1 and L2 processing of a Korean nominal suffix -tul by Korean L1 speakers and Chinese learners of Korean. Masked and cross-modal priming experiments were performed to examine L1 speakers' and L2 learners' morphological decomposition in processing the target nominal suffix. The results revealed that the L1 processing displayed partial priming effects in the masked priming experiment and full priming effects in the cross-modal priming experiment, while the L2 processing by Chinese speakers showed no priming in the masked priming experiment and partial priming in the cross-modal priming experiment. We conclude that L1 and L2 processing are fundamentally different, and that unlike L1 processing, morphological decomposition is underused or absent in L2 processing.

The current study investigated the processing of determiner-noun number agreement by advanced Korean learners of English, with distance and working memory capacity as modulating factors. Twelve English native speakers and eighteen Korean learners of English read English sentences, half of which contained agreement violations, while their EEG data were recorded. The sentences also varied in the distance between determiner and noun (i.e. short distance and long distance). From the data analysis, no LAN effect was observed in both groups in the time window of 300-450 ms. However, only the native group showed a P600 effect (500-600 ms) in response to agreement violations. While short distance conditions overall elicited more positive waveforms than long distance conditions for both groups, the distance did not affect the size of P600. Finally, only the L2 learners with high working memory capacity showed a small P600 effect for short distance conditions at a later time window (700-800 ms). These findings demonstrate that advanced Korean learners do not process number agreement in a native-like way when the grammatical feature is absent in their mother language. Nonetheless, working memory capacity was found to play a moderate role in processing determiner-noun agreement for L2 learners with such aptitude.

This paper reports results from masked and cross-modal priming experiments which investigate L1 and L2 processing of Korean nominal marker ?ka in native speakers of Korean and advanced Chinese L2 learners of Korean. In both the masked and cross-modal priming experiments, partial priming effects were found for L1, and full priming effects for L2. The results indicate that L1 speakers of Korean make less use of morphological decomposition on the processing of the nominal marker ?ka than Chinese L2 learners of Korean. The results that there was no difference between masked and cross-modal priming either in L1 or in L2 also indicate that the observed L1/L2 difference cannot be confined to either level of processing, at the early stages of form-level access or at the central level of lexical entries.

This study investigated the neural correlates of morphological processing in Sino-Korean prefixed derivations in the visual word recognition. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), brain responses to morphological, semantic and orthographic priming effects were examined on the three time windows: N250 (200?270 ms), N400 (340?380 ms), and a late positivity component (LPC) (380?450 ms). Forty-three native Korean speakers participated in a masked priming lexical decision task while their EEG was recorded. The overall results revealed robust and sustained neural effects of N250, N400 and a late positivity for morphological priming, but absence or very weak effects for semantic and orthographic priming, indicating early morphological decomposition and subsequent reanalysis. The following topographic analysis further confirmed that the morphological priming effects were elicited at language related brain regions. These findings were taken as supporting evidence for the early sub-lexical and continuous engagement of morphological analysis of the lexicon in visual word recognition, extending our understanding of morphological decomposition beyond alphabetic languages.

This study examined how morphemic knowledge influences visual recognition of Sino-Koreansuffixed words. Sixty-three Korean young adults completed a masked priming lexicaldecision task including morphological, semantic, and orthographic priming conditions. Overall results revealed significant priming effects across all conditions, with themorphological priming effect much larger than semantic and orthographic effects. Moreimportantly, semantic and orthographic priming effects diminished or disappeared asmorphemic knowledge increased, while morphological priming remained larger andstable. A further group comparison revealed a significant difference in semantic primingonly; a significantly larger effect in low-knowledge group. These findings suggest thatlexical processing mainly depends on morphological decomposition focusing on themorphological cues, shifting away from semantic or orthographic cues with an increasein morphemic knowledge in individuals.

This paper presents a simple and robust face detection algorithm that can be utilized to video summary. We firstly apply the Illumination-compensation process for reducing the effect of brightness on the image. And then, we analyze the face region based on color in the YCbCr space to obtain the skin color. Also, we try the morphological image processing called closing algorithm to improve the detection. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our face detection algorithm that leads to 96.7 % precision ratio on average.

This study investigated whether individual differences in morphemic knowledge modulate the lexical processing of Sino-Korean prefixed derivations. Previous ERP research (Kang & Lee, 2025) demonstrated that Sino-Korean prefixes function as morphologically independent units during visual word recognition, eliciting N250, N400, and LPC effects distinct from semantic and orthographic processing. Building on the Lexical Quality Hypothesis (Perfetti, 2007), which proposes that lexical processing varies as a function of the quality of lexical representations, we reanalyzed the ERP dataset from Kang & Lee (2025) by incorporating morphemic knowledge as a continuous predictor in linear mixed-effects models. The results showed that morphemic knowledge significantly modulated ERP priming effects associated with the N250 and LPC, but not the N400. Morphological and semantic primes elicited larger N250 effects as a function of morphemic knowledge, suggesting more efficient early activation of meaningful lexical relationships among individuals with stronger morphological knowledge. No significant modulation by morphemic knowledge was observed for the N400 effect. Morphemic knowledge also modulated LPC effects, indicating an influence on later stages of lexical evaluation and integration. Region-of-interest analyses showed that morphemic knowledge modulated ERP magnitude but not scalp distribution, suggesting enhanced processing efficiency within existing lexical networks. These findings suggest that morphemic knowledge contributes to lexical quality and facilitates the efficiency of lexical processing during visual word recognition. More broadly, the results highlight the importance of individual differences in linguistic knowledge for understanding the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying word recognition.

A new morphological image processing algorithm is proposed for automatically and non-destructively analyzing the cellular structure of planar-type bioceramic foam using an optical microscope. With an abundant cell density, the cell structure can differentiate high cell volume fraction, high degree of interconnection to neighboring cells, and variable cell sizes. Our primary focus was to identify whether the distribution in cell sizes could be reliably measured by automatically delineating cell boundaries on the basis of a difference in the optical reflection of the cell and strut. There should be no mechanical or chemical pretreatment needed to enhance their visibility. Under this condition, an appropriate cell-marking process is required to discriminate each cell with a variation in light intensity. However, it is not possible to apply this procedure using a conventional microscopic technique. Therefore, a novel boundary construction operation was designed that can describe boundaries based not only on cell shapes but also on the light intensity of cells. The results of the operation enable us to quantify important characteristics, such as cell size distribution and perimeter size. The proposed method has advantages over the conventional segmentation (i.e., watershed) method in quantifying cell structures with larger cells; however, a longer computing time is required.

An image processing algorithm has been developed in order to analyze the nanofiber web images obtained from a high magnification microscope. It has been known that precise pore detection on thick webs is extremely difficult mainly due to lack of light uniformity, difficulty of fine focusing and translucency of nanofiber web. The pore detection algorithm developed has been found to show excellent performance in characterizing the porous structure, thus being a promising tool for on-line quality control system under mass production. Since the images obtained from an optical microscope represent only web surface, a scale factor has been introduced to estimate the web structure as a whole. Resulting web structures have been compared to those by mercury porosimetry, especially in pore size distribution. It has been shown that those two structures have a strong correlation, indicating that scaling of a single layer web structure can be an effective way of estimating the structure of thick fiber webs.