Home // ACHI 2015, The Eighth International Conference on Advances in Computer-Human Interactions // View article

G-IM: An Input Method of Chinese Characters for Character Amnesia Prevention

Authors:
Kazushi Nishimoto
Jianning Wei

Keywords: input method of Chinese characters; character amnesia; incorrect character shapes; pronunciation-based input method; (re)building retention and recall of Chinese characters.

Abstract:
Character amnesia is a recent phenomenon in which native Chinese or Japanese speakers forget how to write Chinese characters (Kanji in Japanese), but maintain the ability to read them. It is generally believed that the constant use of computers and mobile phones equipped with pronunciation-based Chinese-character input systems is to blame. Therefore, particularly in China, several element-based input methods that require users to input radicals of the Chinese characters have been developed. However, these methods are not effective for learning how to write unfamiliar characters. This paper proposes a novel pronunciation-based input method called G-IM. Unlike conventional methods, G-IM sometimes outputs incorrect character shapes, which forces users to pay close attention to the character shapes and thus strengthens retention and recall. Through user studies, we confirmed that G-IM significantly strengthens the retention and recall of character shapes as compared to conventional input methods and writing by hand.

Pages: 118 to 124

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2015

Publication date: February 22, 2015

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4138

ISBN: 978-1-61208-382-7

Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Dates: from February 22, 2015 to February 27, 2015