We created a novel paradigm to investigate phonological processing in sign and asked how age of acquisition (AoA) may affect it. Participants indicated which of two signs was more phonologically similar to a target, and estimated the strength of the resemblance with a mouse click along a continuous scale. We manipulated AoA by testing deaf native and non-native signers, and hearing L2 signers and sign-naïve participants. Consistent with previous research, judgments by the native and L2 signers reflected similarity based on shared phonological features between signs. By contrast, judgments by the non-native signers and sign-naïve participants were influenced by other (potentially visual or somatosensory) properties of signs that native and L2 signers ignored. These results suggest that early exposure to language helps a learner discern which aspects of a linguistic signal are most likely to matter for language learning, even if that language belongs to a different modality.
2024. Parent American Sign Language skills correlate with child–but not toddler–ASL vocabulary size. Language Acquisition 31:2 ► pp. 85 ff.
Brentari, Diane
2019. Sign Language Phonology,
Cheng, Qi, Emily Silvano & Marina Bedny
2020. Sensitive periods in cortical specialization for language: insights from studies with Deaf and blind individuals. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences 36 ► pp. 169 ff.
Ferjan Ramirez, Naja, Matthew K. Leonard, Christina Torres, Marla Hatrak, Eric Halgren & Rachel I. Mayberry
2014. Neural Language Processing in Adolescent First-Language Learners. Cerebral Cortex 24:10 ► pp. 2772 ff.
Hall, Matthew L., Victor S. Ferreira, Rachel I. Mayberry & Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells
2015. Syntactic Priming in American Sign Language. PLOS ONE 10:3 ► pp. e0119611 ff.
Hall, Matthew L., Rachel I. Mayberry & Victor S. Ferreira
2017. Acceptability judgments still matter: Deafness and documentation. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 40
Mayberry, Rachel I., Matthew L. Hall & Meghan Zvaigzne
2014. Subjective frequency ratings for 432 ASL signs. Behavior Research Methods 46:2 ► pp. 526 ff.
MAYBERRY, RACHEL I. & ROBERT KLUENDER
2018. Rethinking the critical period for language: New insights into an old question from American Sign Language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 21:5 ► pp. 886 ff.
Ortega, Gerardo & Gary Morgan
2015. Phonological Development in Hearing Learners of a Sign Language: The Influence of Phonological Parameters, Sign Complexity, and Iconicity. Language Learning 65:3 ► pp. 660 ff.
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