Eye-gaze shift as a measure of sign language processing in young deaf children

目光转移作为聋哑儿童手语处理的衡量标准

• 批准号: 8231733
• 负责人: Amy Michelle Lieberman
• 金额: $ 15.46万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-21 至 2014-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8231733
• 关键词: 5 year old; Adult; Affect; Age; Birth; Child; Communication; Comprehension; Data; Development; Early Intervention; Early identification; Education; Environment; Exposure to; Eye; Goals; Hearing; Hearing Impaired Persons; Individual; Infant; Knowledge; Label; Language; Language Development; Learning; Length; Light; Linguistics; Measures; Modality; Names; Outcome; Parents; Pattern; Performance; Population; Procedures; Process; Process Measure; Questionnaires; Reaction Time; Regression Analysis; Relative (related person); Resolution; Risk; Sampling; Sign Language; Signal Transduction; Speech; Speed; Testing; Time; Variant; Videotape; Vocabulary; Work; age effect; base; critical period; deprivation; disability; experience; gaze; infancy; insight; language processing; lexical processing; literacy; native American sign language; novel; processing speed; research study; response; skills; visual process; visual processing

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Deaf individuals represent a unique linguistic population in that there is wide variation in when they are first exposed to language. Although it is well established that deaf children without access to language from an early age are at-risk for delays in language, literacy, and other academic outcomes, as yet there is very little known about how sign language is processed in deaf individuals, and how processing ability may affect vocabulary and other linguistic skills. This is particularly important in light of the fact that over 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents, and thus their early linguistic environment is highly atypical and frequently impoverished. The proposed study will investigate sign language processing through development of a novel paradigm. The paradigm is an adaptation of the "looking-while-listening" (LWL) paradigm that has been used with hearing subjects from infants to adults. The LWL paradigm yields time- course measures of children's responses at higher temporal resolution than is common in other widely used experimental tasks. Children look at pairs of pictures while listening to speech naming one of the pictures, and gaze patterns are videotaped and analyzed in relation to the concurrent speech signal. In addition to measures of accuracy, the LWL procedure yields precise measures of the speed, or reaction time (RT) with which subjects initiate a shift in gaze to the target picture relative to the onset of the target word. Despite the established validity of this paradigm and significant gains in understanding it has provided, to date there has been no attempt to assess parallel developments in sign language processing. In the proposed study, this paradigm will be adapted for use with American Sign Language (ASL). Thus instead of an audio speech signal, subjects will see a signed signal labeling one of the pictures. Gaze shifts will then be used to obtain measures of processing efficiency in deaf individuals using ASL. The goal of this project is to obtain data on real-time processing of sign language by deaf children and adults, a measure that cannot be obtained using current experimental paradigms. Specifically, the objectives of the study are: 1) to investigate real-time processing of ASL by deaf adults and children who have been exposed to language from birth (i.e. from deaf parents), comprising typical development; 2) to reveal possible differences in processing in adults and children who acquire ASL at later ages (i.e., from hearing parents); and 3) to determine the relationship between processing efficiency and ASL skill. This novel paradigm will begin to fill a critical gap in knowledge about how ASL is processed by both typical and atypical language learners. Understanding how sign language is processed in these populations will reveal important insights about critical period phenomena, processing of visual language, and relationships between language processing ability and vocabulary development. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed project will examine how deaf adults and children process American Sign Language (ASL), and whether there are differences in language processing between individuals who have deaf parents and are exposed to ASL from birth, and those who have hearing parents and are exposed to ASL after birth. This study will have implications for early identification and education practices for deaf children, and will contribute to our understanding of language comprehension in different populations, critical period effects on sign language processing, and the potential negative effects of early language deprivation. )

描述(由申请人提供)：聋人代表了一个独特的语言群体，因为他们第一次接触语言的时间有很大的差异。虽然众所周知，耳聋儿童在很小的时候就没有机会接触语言，但他们在语言、识字和其他学习成绩方面存在延迟的风险，但关于聋人是如何处理手语的，以及处理能力如何影响词汇和其他语言技能的，人们还知之甚少。这一点尤其重要，因为90%以上的聋哑儿童都是听力正常的父母，因此他们早期的语言环境非常不典型，经常是贫穷的。这项拟议的研究将通过开发一种新的范式来研究手语处理。这一模式是对“边看边听”(LWL)模式的一种改编，该模式已经被用于从婴儿到成年人的听力受试者。LWL范式产生了比其他广泛使用的实验任务中常见的更高的时间分辨率的儿童反应的时间-过程测量。孩子们一边听着说出其中一张图片的语音，一边看着成对的图片，凝视模式被录制下来，并与同时出现的语音信号相联系进行分析。除了测量精确度外，LWL程序还能精确测量受试者将视线转移到目标图片时相对于目标单词开头的速度或反应时间(RT)。尽管这一范式的有效性已经确立，并在理解方面取得了重大进展，但迄今为止，还没有人试图评估手语处理方面的平行发展。在这项拟议的研究中，这一范式将适用于美国手语(ASL)。因此，受试者将看到标记其中一张图片的签名信号，而不是音频语音信号。然后，将使用凝视转移来测量使用ASL的聋人的处理效率。该项目的目标是获得失聪儿童和成人对手语的实时处理数据，这是目前的实验范式无法获得的一项措施。具体地说，本研究的目的是：1)考察聋人成人和从出生起就接触语言的儿童(即聋人父母)对ASL的实时加工，包括典型的发展；2)揭示成年和儿童在加工过程中的可能差异(即，从听力父母那里获得ASL)；以及3)确定加工效率和ASL技能之间的关系。这一新的范式将开始填补关于典型和非典型语言学习者如何处理ASL的关键知识空白。了解手语在这些人群中是如何被加工的，将揭示关键时期现象、视觉语言的加工以及语言加工能力和词汇发展之间的关系的重要见解。 公共卫生相关性：拟议的项目将研究聋人成人和儿童如何处理美国手语(ASL)，以及父母失聪并从出生起就接触美国手语的人与父母听力正常并在出生后接触美国手语的人在语言处理方面是否存在差异。本研究将对聋儿的早期识别和教育实践有所启示，有助于我们理解不同人群的语言理解、关键时期对手语加工的影响以及早期语言剥夺的潜在负面影响。)