ASL Perception and Production: Evidence from Eye Tracking

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Karen Emmore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。该项目包括使用头戴式眼睛跟踪技术来研究签名者的眼睛行为的第一次实验。其中一组研究将调查眼睛凝视在手势感知过程中的社交和对话功能。聋人手语二元体和听力说话二元体将被比较，以确定手语和口语互动时眼睛凝视的知觉、语言和社会需求。第二组研究将调查手势产生过程中的眼球运动。这些研究探讨了美国手语中眼睛凝视的语法功能，并确定了手语者如何将他们的眼球运动与手语句子的语言结构相协调。该项目还将比较本地聋人手语者和成年后期学习者(听力和聋人)在手势感知和产生过程中的眼睛行为。对手语的研究对于理解人类语言共性和变异的本质是至关重要的。这对培养手语翻译员和聋人教育项目教师的第二语言项目的发展也具有重要意义。使用眼睛凝视来标记语言结构是手语独有的，本项目的结果将为我们提供关于语言情态如何影响语法编码的见解。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眼睛凝视模式。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一名聋人研究生和为聋人学生提供一个无障碍的研究环境，促进聋人参与研究。

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.