The PISA (parallel input serial access) model assumes independence and competition of word-level and letter-level processing (Allen & Madden, 1990; Allen & Emerson, 1991), while the IA (interactive activation) model proposes that word-level and letter-level processing interactively exchange information (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981). This current study attempts to explore which of these two views characterizes the character-component relationship in Chinese character recognition using the component detection task. Experiment 1 found a high-frequency disadvantage for high- and medium-frequency components, a medium-frequency advantage for low-frequency components, and an overall character superiority effect. Experiment 2 cued and blocked the location of the target component and it ruled out an artifact account for findings from Experiment 1. The effect of character structure was also consistent across the two experiments. These findings are not consistent with the straightforward prediction of the PISA or the IA view of character-component relationship and an alternative explanation was considered.

Key words: Chinese character recognition, character frequency, radical frequency, character inferiority effect