在拼音文字中，「拼字、發音」對應的一致性通常以拼法類似(即相同「字體」)的鄰近字群大小加以界定。一致性又以「字素、音素」對應法則加以界定。故一致性與規則性往往無法分辨清楚。在中文中規則性與一致性均以聲旁(部件)加以界定，聲旁又與拼音文字中「字體」可供比較，因此在中文中規則性與一致性的界定均無爭論餘地。依靠部件與發音關係，可以界定「部件、發音」對應上一致性的三個向度。三種不規則字亦可界定，即異音字、非音字及非同音字。由於有一致性的各別向度，可以將一致性與不同種類規則性對抗比較。對抗比較的結果可以發現;一致性效果通常顯現在唸名潛伏期，規則性效果則顯示在唸名錯誤率。由於大部分的唸名錯誤代表回憶上的錯誤，在唸出目標字時，可以推測其他發音並非在其處理時而在其回憶時參與競爭。相較於規則字，受試者對不規則字做更多錯誤傾向的規則性效果有如下意義，即可發音或相容的聲旁在一個人小時就可以幫助習得規則字的過程。

In alphabetic languages, the consistency in spelling-sound correspondences is defined by the neighborhood size of similarly spelled words (i.e., with the same word-body) with the same pronunciation. It is sometimes defined in terms of grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC) rules. There is no dispute as to how to define regularity and consistency in Chinese, because both are defined in terms of phonetic radicals (phonetics), which are comparable to word-bodies in alphabetic languages. Depending on the radical-sound relationship, three dimensions of consistency in radical-sound correspondences may be defined. Three types of irregularity may be defined: heterophonous, non-phonetic, and non-homophonous. The existence of separate dimensions of consistency makes it possible to pit consistency against various types of regularity. It was found that the consistency effect generally appears in naming latencies and that the regularity effect appears in naming errors. Since the large majorities of naming errors represent retrieval errors, it is reasoned that alternative pronunciations compete at the time of retrieval rather than during processing in naming a target character. The regularity effect as showing a tendency to make more errors for irregular than for regular characters signifies that pronounceable/compatible phonetics may aid the acquisition of regular characters in people’s early childhood.