Mental Representation of Signs and Words

Rochester Institute Of Technology, Rochester NY

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

More than 23 million people in the United States have chronic, significant hearing losses, and approximately 4.6 million acquired their hearing losses as children. Many of those with earlier onset, severe to profound losses demonstrate lags in cognitive, linguistic, and educational domains relative to hearing peers. Recent evidence indicates that some of the observed challenges associated with greater hearing losses may be related to specific characteristics of a speech-based coding system in working memory, but much less is known of possible alternative coding systems in working memory that might be available for sign language. The objectives of this project are to (a) expand knowledge concerning working memory in skilled signers, both deaf and hearing, when they are presented with sign language versus written language, (b) clarify the extent to which users of a signed language (e.g., American Sign Language - ASL) depend on or can employ visuospatial, manual-motor, and speech-based information in memory for signs and for printed words, (c) advance knowledge about the psychological processes involved in sign language interpretation, (d) advance knowledge of human working memory. Ten experiments will involve deaf and hearing signers from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. The methodoloqv will draw on techniques of cognitive psychology. Experiment 1 will collect ratings of the familiarity and imageability of 200 common ASL signs and familiarity and imageability ratings of the equivalent words. Ratings will be used to select materials for remaining experiments and offer a tool for future research. Experiments 2-10 will involve a dual task paradigm in which simple tasks that disrupt speech-based mental rehearsal or visuomotor based mental rehearsal are performed during presentation of words and signs, and the impact on recall performance will be examined. Experiments 2-6 will be conducted with skilled hearing signers (sign language interpreters), and Experiments 7-10 with deaf individuals to examine the roles of different forms of memory encoding, encoding preferences, and the impact of the semantic properties of the words and signs and the impact of sign familiarity and sign language expertise. The present studies also will yield valuable findinqs with regard to overcoming some long-standing educational challenges associated with deafness. The innovative aspects of this project include clarification of contradictory results from previous research concerning the nature and operation of working memory in deaf individuals, the extent to which a visuomotor component of working memory might support use of sign language more effectively than would a speech-based memory system, the detailed study of skilled signers, and the nature of the mental representations underlying the use of signs by skilled signers.