scholarly journals The unexplored role of handshape similarity in processing numbers on the hands

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 156-171
Author(s):  
Ilaria Berteletti ◽  
SaraBeth J. Sullivan ◽  
Lucas Lancaster
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Numerical Information ◽  
Finger Counting ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Native Signers ◽  
The Relationship

With two simple experiments we investigate the overlooked influence of handshape similarity for processing numerical information conveyed on the hands. In most finger-counting sequences there is a tight relationship between the number of fingers raised and the numerical value represented. This creates a possible confound where numbers closer to each other are also represented by handshapes that are more similar. By using the American Sign Language (ASL) number signs we are able to dissociate between the two variables orthogonally. First, we test the effect of handshape similarity in a same/different judgment task in a group of hearing non-signers and then test the interference of handshape in a number judgment task in a group of native ASL signers. Our results show an effect of handshape similarity and its interaction with numerical value even in the group of native signers for whom these handshapes are linguistic symbols and not a learning tool for acquiring numerical concepts. Because prior studies have never considered handshape similarity, these results open new directions for understanding the relationship between finger-based counting, internal hand representations and numerical proficiency.

scholarly journals The unexplored role of handshape similarity in processing numbers on the hands

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilaria Berteletti ◽  
SaraBeth Sullivan ◽  
Lucas Lancaster
Keyword(s):  
Judgment Task ◽  
Learning Tool ◽  
Numerical Information ◽  
Finger Counting ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Native Signers ◽  
The Relationship

With two simple experiments we investigate the overlooked influence of handshape similarity for processing numerical information conveyed on the hands. In most finger-counting sequences there is a tight relationship between the number of fingers raised and the numerical value represented. This creates a possible confound where numbers closer to each other are also represented by handshapes that are more similar. By using the ASL number signs we are able to dissociate between the two variables orthogonally. First, we test the effect of handshape similarity in a same/different judgment task in a group of hearing non-signers and then test the interference of handshape in a number judgment task in a group of native ASL signers. Our results show an effect of handshape similarity and its interaction with numerical value even in the group of native signers for whom these handshapes are linguistic symbols and not a learning tool for acquiring numerical concepts. Because prior studies have never considered handshape similarity, these results open new directions for understanding the relationship between finger-based counting, internal hand representations and numerical proficiency.

ASL or contact signing: Issues of judgment

1991 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ceil Lucas ◽  
Clayton Valli
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Demographic Information ◽  
Contact Language ◽  
Native Signers

ABSTRACTThis article reports on one aspect of an ongoing study of language contact in the American deaf community. A kind of signing that results from the contact between American Sign Language (ASL) and English exhibits features of both languages. The ultimate goal of the study is a linguistic description of contact signing and a reexamination of claims that it is a pidgin. Ten dyads and two triads of native ASL signers (6 white dyads, 4 black dyads, 2 black triads) were videotaped with a deaf interviewer, a hearing interviewer, and alone with each other. The different interview situations induced switching between ASL and contact signing. This article (1) reviews the pattern of language use during the interviews with the white dyads and describes the judgments of selected videotaped segments by 10 native signers; (2) examines the role of demographic information in judgments. For each segment, half of the judges were given one set of demographic information, and the other half were given another set. Indications are that this information does affect judgment, even though the linguistic forms viewed were identical. (American Sign Language, language contact, language judgments, deaf community)

Iconicity is in the eye of the beholder

Gesture ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corrine Occhino ◽  
Benjamin Anible ◽  
Erin Wilkinson ◽  
Jill P. Morford
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Signed Languages ◽  
The World ◽  
Native Signers ◽  
German Sign Language

Abstract A renewed interest in understanding the role of iconicity in the structure and processing of signed languages is hampered by the conflation of iconicity and transparency in the definition and operationalization of iconicity as a variable. We hypothesize that iconicity is fundamentally different than transparency since it arises from individuals’ experience with the world and their language, and is subjectively mediated by the signers’ construal of form and meaning. We test this hypothesis by asking American Sign Language (ASL) signers and German Sign Language (DGS) signers to rate iconicity of ASL and DGS signs. Native signers consistently rate signs in their own language as more iconic than foreign language signs. The results demonstrate that the perception of iconicity is intimately related to language-specific experience. Discovering the full ramifications of iconicity for the structure and processing of signed languages requires operationalizing this construct in a manner that is sensitive to language experience.

The Cortical Organization of Syntactic Processing Is Supramodal: Evidence from American Sign Language

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
William Matchin ◽  
Deniz İlkbaşaran ◽  
Marla Hatrak ◽  
Austin Roth ◽  
Agnes Villwock ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Probe Recognition ◽  
Native Signers

Abstract Areas within the left-lateralized neural network for language have been found to be sensitive to syntactic complexity in spoken and written language. Previous research has revealed that these areas are active for sign language as well, but whether these areas are specifically responsive to syntactic complexity in sign language independent of lexical processing has yet to be found. To investigate the question, we used fMRI to neuroimage deaf native signers' comprehension of 180 sign strings in American Sign Language (ASL) with a picture-probe recognition task. The ASL strings were all six signs in length but varied at three levels of syntactic complexity: sign lists, two-word sentences, and complex sentences. Syntactic complexity significantly affected comprehension and memory, both behaviorally and neurally, by facilitating accuracy and response time on the picture-probe recognition task and eliciting a left lateralized activation response pattern in anterior and posterior superior temporal sulcus (aSTS and pSTS). Minimal or absent syntactic structure reduced picture-probe recognition and elicited activation in bilateral pSTS and occipital-temporal cortex. These results provide evidence from a sign language, ASL, that the combinatorial processing of anterior STS and pSTS is supramodal in nature. The results further suggest that the neurolinguistic processing of ASL is characterized by overlapping and separable neural systems for syntactic and lexical processing.

Identity, Ethics, and the Deaf Community

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-71
Author(s):  
Teresa Blankmeyer Burke
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Deaf Identity ◽  
Language Representation ◽  
Per Se

From the vantage point of philosophy, this chapter discusses identities using a philosophical stance with specific focus on the ethics dimension of what deaf identity means. The author, a deaf philosopher, explores the American Sign Language representation of the word philosophy and briefly describes the role of philosophy per se in exploring the roles of metaphysics and epistemology. She introduces an analytical philosophical approach to the topic of ethics and deaf identities that involves concept clarification, analysis of brief examples, and posing specific kinds of questions that are typical of this discipline. The chapter ends with a plea for academics and community participants to continue exploring explicit identification of beliefs about the nature and meaning of deaf identity.

scholarly journals The perceived mapping between form and meaning in American Sign Language depends on linguistic knowledge and task: evidence from iconicity and transparency judgments

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (02) ◽  
pp. 208-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZED SEVCIKOVA SEHYR ◽  
KAREN EMMOREY
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
American Sign ◽  
H Index ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
Iconic Signs ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
And Task

abstractIconicity is often defined as the resemblance between a form and a given meaning, while transparency is defined as the ability to infer a given meaning based on the form. This study examined the influence of knowledge of American Sign Language (ASL) on the perceived iconicity of signs and the relationship between iconicity, transparency (correctly guessed signs), ‘perceived transparency’ (transparency ratings of the guesses), and ‘semantic potential’ (the diversity (H index) of guesses). Experiment 1 compared iconicity ratings by deaf ASL signers and hearing non-signers for 991 signs from the ASL-LEX database. Signers and non-signers’ ratings were highly correlated; however, the groups provided different iconicity ratings for subclasses of signs: nouns vs. verbs, handling vs. entity, and one- vs. two-handed signs. In Experiment 2, non-signers guessed the meaning of 430 signs and rated them for how transparent their guessed meaning would be for others. Only 10% of guesses were correct. Iconicity ratings correlated with transparency (correct guesses), perceived transparency ratings, and semantic potential (H index). Further, some iconic signs were perceived as non-transparent and vice versa. The study demonstrates that linguistic knowledge mediates perceived iconicity distinctly from gesture and highlights critical distinctions between iconicity, transparency (perceived and objective), and semantic potential.

Embodiment and American Sign Language

Gesture ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
David P. Corina ◽  
Eva Gutierrez
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
Forward Model ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Sign Recognition ◽  
Lexical Decisions ◽  
Internal Forward Model ◽  
Native Signers ◽  
Internal Body

Little is known about how individual signs that occur in naturally produced signed languages are recognized. Here we examine whether sign understanding may be grounded in sensorimotor properties by evaluating a signer’s ability to make lexical decisions to American Sign Language (ASL) signs that are articulated either congruent with or incongruent with the observer’s own handedness. Our results show little evidence for handedness congruency effects for native signers’ perception of ASL, however handedness congruency effects were seen in non-native late learners of ASL and hearing ASL-English bilinguals. The data are compatible with a theory of sign recognition that makes reference to internally simulated articulatory control signals — a forward model based upon sensory-motor properties of one’s owns body. The data suggest that sign recognition may rely upon an internal body schema when processing is non-optimal as a result of having learned ASL later in life. Native signers however may have developed representations of signs which are less bound to the hand with which it is performed, suggesting a different engagement of an internal forward model for rapid lexical decisions.

The relationship between spontaneous gestures of the hearing and American Sign Language

Gesture ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelyn McClave
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
American Sign ◽  
Electronic Edition ◽  
Signed Languages ◽  
Spontaneous Movements ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

This paper presents evidence of non-manual gestures in American Sign Language (ASL). The types of gestures identified are identical to non-manual, spontaneous gestures used by hearing non-signers which suggests that the gestures co-occurring with ASL signs are borrowings from hearing culture. A comparison of direct quotes in ASL with spontaneous movements of hearing non-signers suggests a history of borrowing and eventual grammaticization in ASL of features previously thought to be unique to signed languages. The electronic edition of this article includes audio-visial data.

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