ASL Perception and Production: Evidence from Eye Tracking

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Karen Emmorey 博士将对美国手语 (ASL) 的感知和产生进行为期三年的心理语言学研究。该项目包括首次使用头戴式眼动追踪技术来研究手语者的眼部行为的实验。一组研究将调查符号感知过程中眼睛注视的社交和对话功能。将对聋人手语二元组和听力正常的口语二元组进行比较，以确定手语与口语交互对眼睛注视的感知、语言和社会需求。第二组研究将调查标志制作过程中的眼球运动。这些研究探讨了美国手语中眼睛注视的语法功能，并确定了手语者如何协调他们的眼球运动与手语句子的语言结构。该项目还将比较本地聋人手语者与成年晚期学习者（听力正常和聋哑人）在手语感知和产生过程中的眼睛行为。 手语的研究对于理解人类语言的共性和变异的本质至关重要。这对于培训手语翻译员以及聋人教育项目讲师的第二语言项目的开发也具有重要意义。使用眼睛注视来标记语言结构是手语所独有的，该项目的结果将深入了解语言模态如何影响语法编码。该项目还将确定第二语言学习者在手语感知和产生过程中必须如何改变他们的目光注视模式。最后，耳聋对学生获得学术和科学职业的能力有重大影响，该项目旨在通过支持聋哑研究生并为聋哑学生提供一个可以使用的研究环境来促进聋哑人参与研究。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Karen Emmorey will conduct three years of psycholinguistic research on the the perception and production of American Sign Language (ASL). This project includes the first experiments using head-mounted eye tracking technology to study eye behaviors of signers. One set of studies will investigate the social and conversational functions of eye gaze during sign perception. Deaf signing dyads and hearing speaking dyads will be compared to identify perceptual, linguistic, and social demands on eye gaze for signed versus spoken language interactions. A second set of studies will investigate eye movements during sign production. These studies address the grammatical functions of eye gaze in ASL and identify how signers co-ordinate their eye movements with the linguistic structure of signed sentences. Tthe project will also compare the eye behaviors of native deaf signers with adult late learners (hearing and deaf) during sign perception and production. The study of signed languages is essential to an understanding of the nature of human language universals and variation. It is also significant for the development of second language programs that train sign language interpreters, as well as instructors for deaf education programs. The use of eye gaze to mark linguistic structure is unique to signed languages, and the results of this project will provide insight into how language modality can affect grammatical encoding. The project will also identify how second language learners must alter their eye gaze patterns during both sign language perception and production. Finally, deafness has a substantial impact on the ability of students to gain access to academic and scientific careers, and this project aims to promote the participation of deaf people in research by supporting a deaf graduate student and providing a research environment accessible to deaf students.