Mental Representation of Signs and Words

在美国，超过2300万人患有慢性、严重的听力损失，大约460万人在儿童时期就患有听力损失。许多早期发病、严重到严重损失的人在认知、语言和教育领域相对于听力正常的同龄人表现出滞后。最近的证据表明，一些观察到的与更大的听力损失相关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适用于手语的替代编码系统知之甚少。本项目的目标是：（a）扩大有关工作记忆的知识， 熟练的手语者，包括聋人和听力正常者，当他们被呈现手语与书面语言时，（B）澄清手语的使用者（例如，美国手语（ASL）依赖于或可以使用视觉空间，手动运动和语音为基础的信息在记忆中的迹象和印刷文字，（c）提前了解心理过程中涉及的手语翻译，（d）提前了解人类的工作记忆。10项实验将涉及来自国家聋人技术研究所的聋人和听力正常的手语者。该方法将借鉴认知心理学的技术。实验一收集了200个普通被试的熟悉度和想象度的评分 美国手语符号与对应词的熟悉度和形象度等级。评级将用于选择剩余实验的材料，并为未来的研究提供工具。实验2-10将涉及一个双任务范式，其中简单的任务，破坏基于语音的心理排练或基于视觉的心理排练的单词和符号的呈现过程中进行，并对召回性能的影响将进行检查。实验2-6将与熟练的听力签名者（手语翻译者）进行，实验7-10将与聋人进行，以检查不同形式的记忆编码的作用，编码偏好，以及单词和符号的语义属性的影响， 手语熟悉度和手语专业知识。目前的研究也将在克服与耳聋相关的一些长期存在的教育挑战方面产生有价值的发现。该项目的创新方面包括澄清以前关于聋人工作记忆的性质和运作的研究中相互矛盾的结果，工作记忆的视觉成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，对熟练手语者的详细研究，以及熟练的签名者使用符号的心理表征的性质。

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.