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A method for examining gestural language structure.

E J Hass, K M Sams

Perceptual and Motor Skills

|April 1, 1987

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This study explored if American Sign Language (ASL) syntactic constituents are perceived as units. Findings suggest constituent breaks influence perception, though English proficiency may affect results in ASL users.

Area of Science:

Psycholinguistics
Sign Language Linguistics
Cognitive Science

Background:

Investigating the psychological reality of linguistic units is crucial for understanding language processing.
Previous research (Fodor & Bever, 1965) established methods for studying perceptual units in spoken language.

Purpose of the Study:

To test the hypothesis that syntactic constituents in American Sign Language (ASL) function as perceptual units.
To adapt established methods for studying perceptual segmentation in a visual-gestural language.

Main Methods:

Four deaf ASL-signing participants were presented with sign sequences containing a single constituent break.
A light flash's perceived location during the sequence was the dependent variable.
The flash's subjective placement was analyzed relative to the constituent boundary.

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Main Results:

Two participants showed a perceptual effect, with flashes being attracted to the constituent boundary.
The other two participants exhibited random flash localization, not aligning with the predicted boundary.
Higher English (written) proficiency correlated with the lack of the predicted perceptual effect.

Conclusions:

Results partially support the hypothesis that ASL syntactic constituents act as perceptual units.
The interference of English proficiency in ASL processing may influence the perception of syntactic boundaries.
Further research is needed to elucidate the role of bilingualism in sign language perception.