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Visual-Spatial Perspective-Taking in Spatial Scenes and in American Sign Language
Kristen Secora1, Karen Emmorey2
1The University of Tennessee.
Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education
|June 2, 2020
Summary
Visual-spatial perspective-taking and mental rotation abilities support understanding spatial aspects of American Sign Language (ASL). ASL proficiency also plays a role in comprehending these complex linguistic structures.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Linguistics
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Sign languages, like American Sign Language (ASL), utilize spatial cognition differently than spoken languages.
- Successful communication in ASL requires interlocutors to mentally process different visual perspectives of the signer's hands.
- The specific cognitive abilities supporting comprehension of perspective-dependent ASL structures remain largely unexamined.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether visual-spatial perspective-taking (VSPT) and mental rotation (MR) abilities are crucial for understanding perspective-dependent ASL structures.
- To determine the relationship between nonlinguistic VSPT, MR abilities, and ASL proficiency in deaf adult signers.
- To assess the predictive power of VSPT and MR on ASL comprehension, particularly for spatial classifier constructions.
Main Methods:
- Thirty-three deaf adult ASL signers participated in the study.
- Participants completed nonlinguistic VSPT and MR ability tasks.
- ASL proficiency was assessed using the ASL-Sentence Reproduction Task (ASL-SRT), and ASL comprehension of perspective-dependent classifier constructions was measured by the ASL Spatial Perspective Comprehension Test (ASPCT).
Main Results:
- Scores on the ASPCT (linguistic perspective-taking) and nonlinguistic VSPT tasks showed a positive correlation.
- Both ASPCT and VSPT scores positively correlated with MR ability.
- VSPT abilities were a stronger predictor of linguistic perspective-taking in ASL than MR ability. ASL-SRT scores correlated with ASPCT accuracy but not VSPT scores.
Conclusions:
- Comprehending perspective-dependent ASL classifier constructions is linked to ASL proficiency.
- Nonlinguistic visual-spatial perspective-taking and mental rotation abilities are important factors in understanding these spatial ASL structures.
- VSPT ability appears to be a more significant factor than MR ability in supporting the comprehension of spatial elements within ASL.
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