Kanji versus Kananeuropsychological correlates of the Japanese writing system

Abstract The Japanese language has two different systems of writing — Kanji or morphograms and Kana or syllabograms (Fig. 1). Recent neuropsychological studies on patients with transection of the corpus callosum or with a focal lesion in the left cerebral hemisphere have revealed that the left cerebral hemisphere is responsible for the reading and writing of both types of scripts. However, the processing of Kanji and Kana scripts involves different intrahemispheric mechanisms.