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Deaf readers' response to syntactic complexity: evidence from self-paced reading
Matthew J Traxler1, David P Corina, Jill P Morford
1Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA, mjtraxler@ucdavis.edu.
Memory & Cognition
|July 23, 2013
Summary
Self-paced reading is feasible for studying deaf readers' sentence processing. Deaf readers, especially native signers, showed comprehension difficulties with complex sentences, which semantic cues could alleviate.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Linguistics
- Psychology
Background:
- Understanding sentence processing in deaf readers is crucial for educational and communication strategies.
- Self-paced reading (SPR) is a valuable tool for online psycholinguistic research, but its application with deaf populations requires validation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To establish the feasibility of using self-paced reading (SPR) to investigate sentence interpretation in deaf readers.
- To examine how deaf readers process complex syntactic structures compared to hearing readers.
Main Methods:
- Three groups (deaf readers, hearing monolinguals, hearing bilinguals) participated.
- Experiment 1: Participants read sentences with subject-relative vs. object-relative clauses, with and without semantic cues.
- Experiment 2: Participants read active vs. passive voice sentences.
Main Results:
- All groups struggled more with object-relative clauses, a difficulty reduced by semantic cues.
- Deaf readers exhibited lower comprehension accuracy than hearing readers.
- Within the deaf group, native signers outperformed non-native signers in reading speed and comprehension.
Conclusions:
- Self-paced reading (SPR) is a viable method for studying sentence processing in deaf individuals.
- Syntactic complexity and semantic support significantly impact sentence interpretation for deaf readers.
- Native sign language proficiency correlates with better English sentence processing skills in deaf readers.
