Mental Representation of Signs and Words

美国有2300多万人患有慢性、严重的听力损失，大约460万人是在儿童时期患上听力损失的。许多起病较早、严重到严重丧失的人在认知、语言和教育领域表现出比听力同龄人落后。最近的证据表明，与更严重的听力损失相关的一些观察到的挑战可能与工作记忆中基于语音的编码系统的特定特征有关，但对工作记忆中可能存在的用于手语的替代编码系统的了解要少得多。这个项目的目标是(A)扩大关于工作记忆的知识 熟练的手语者，包括聋人和听力熟练的手语者，当他们被呈现给手语和书面语时，(B)澄清手语(例如美国手语-ASL)的使用者在多大程度上依赖或能够使用基于视觉空间、手动运动和基于语音的信息来记忆手语和印刷文字，(C)增进关于手语解释所涉及的心理过程的知识，(D)加深对人类工作记忆的了解。十项实验将包括来自国家聋人技术学院的聋人和听力手语者。方法论将借鉴认知心理学的技术。实验一将收集200名普通人的熟悉度和想象力的评分 ASL手势和等值单词的熟悉度和可想象性评级。评级将被用来为剩余的实验选择材料，并为未来的研究提供工具。实验2-10将涉及双重任务范式，即在呈现单词和手势的过程中，执行干扰基于言语的心理预演或基于视觉运动的心理预演的简单任务，并考察其对回忆成绩的影响。实验2-6将与熟练的听觉手语翻译者(手语翻译员)一起进行，实验7-10将与聋人一起进行，以考察不同形式的记忆编码的作用、编码偏好、以及单词和手势的语义属性的影响以及对 手语熟悉度和手语专业知识。本研究还将在克服与耳聋相关的一些长期的教育挑战方面取得有价值的成果。该项目的创新之处包括澄清了先前关于聋人工作记忆的性质和运作的研究的相互矛盾的结果，工作记忆的视觉运动部分在多大程度上可能比基于语音的记忆系统更有效地支持手语的使用，对熟练的手语者的详细研究，以及熟练的手语者使用手语背后的心理表征的性质。

More than 23 million people in the United States have chronic, significant hearing losses, and approximately 4.6 million acquired their hearing losses as children. Many of those with earlier onset, severe to profound losses demonstrate lags in cognitive, linguistic, and educational domains relative to hearing peers. Recent evidence indicates that some of the observed challenges associated with greater hearing losses may be related to specific characteristics of a speech-based coding system in working memory, but much less is known of possible alternative coding systems in working memory that might be available for sign language. The objectives of this project are to (a) expand knowledge concerning working memory in skilled signers, both deaf and hearing, when they are presented with sign language versus written language, (b) clarify the extent to which users of a signed language (e.g., American Sign Language - ASL) depend on or can employ visuospatial, manual-motor, and speech-based information in memory for signs and for printed words, (c) advance knowledge about the psychological processes involved in sign language interpretation, (d) advance knowledge of human working memory. Ten experiments will involve deaf and hearing signers from the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. The methodoloqv will draw on techniques of cognitive psychology. Experiment 1 will collect ratings of the familiarity and imageability of 200 common ASL signs and familiarity and imageability ratings of the equivalent words. Ratings will be used to select materials for remaining experiments and offer a tool for future research. Experiments 2-10 will involve a dual task paradigm in which simple tasks that disrupt speech-based mental rehearsal or visuomotor based mental rehearsal are performed during presentation of words and signs, and the impact on recall performance will be examined. Experiments 2-6 will be conducted with skilled hearing signers (sign language interpreters), and Experiments 7-10 with deaf individuals to examine the roles of different forms of memory encoding, encoding preferences, and the impact of the semantic properties of the words and signs and the impact of sign familiarity and sign language expertise. The present studies also will yield valuable findinqs with regard to overcoming some long-standing educational challenges associated with deafness. The innovative aspects of this project include clarification of contradictory results from previous research concerning the nature and operation of working memory in deaf individuals, the extent to which a visuomotor component of working memory might support use of sign language more effectively than would a speech-based memory system, the detailed study of skilled signers, and the nature of the mental representations underlying the use of signs by skilled signers.