Phonological priming in deaf signers: Developing a continuous measure of
phonological overlap in Sign Language of the Netherlands (English)
Despite the availability of elaborate phonological models of sign phonology (e.g.
Brentari, 1998; Sandler, 1989), psycholinguistic studies on sign processing continue
to use a rather crude measure for the establishment of minimal sign pairs, i.e., signs
that share most of the phonological features but differ on one or more features. In
these studies, distinctions are generally based on full overlap for the parameters
handshape, location, movement, and orientation. In other words, variation within each
of the parameters is largely neglected and sign processing is implicitly assumed to be
insensitive to such differences. At the same time, we know from phonological models
that, for instance, a handshape consists of selected fingers and finger configuration,
and that the thumb may have a distinct role compared to the fingers. Furthermore,
studies have shown that lower-level distinctions impact perceptual identification (e.g.
Lane, Boyes-Braem, & Bellugi, 1976). This means that handshapes with a high
degree of overlap at the feature level might have to be treated differently from
handshapes that have less overlap (e.g., selected fingers in Figures 1a and 1b versus
selected fingers in Figure 1c). Similar distinctions between large and small degrees of
overlap can be made for the other phonological parameters.
Given the rigid measure of phonological overlap in previous studies, it might
not come as a surprise that the role for the different phonological parameters in sign
recognition appears inconsistent across these studies (e.g. Carreiras, Gutiérrez-Sigut,
Baquero, & Corina, 2008; Corina & Hildebrandt, 2002; Dye & Shih, 2006). In the
present study, we instead adopt a continuous measure of degree of overlap based on
detailed distinctions at the phonological level. Signers’ sensitivity to different degrees
of phonological overlap for each parameter is tested in a phonological priming
experiment in Sign Language of the Netherlands (SLN). Specifically, signs in our
study are described and compared at a fine-grained phonological level using the
Dependency model (Van der Hulst (1993) and further developed by Van der Kooij
(2002) for SLN). Iconically motivated features are described separately and are used
to control for effects of iconicity even at the level of phonological features. For any
pair of signs, the number of shared features is divided by the total number of features
that make up the two signs, resulting in a proportional measure of overlap with a
value between 0 (no overlap) and 1 (maximal overlap, i.e., identical signs). This
measure was then used to select prime and target sign pairs that reflect different
degrees of overlap for each phonological parameter.
This study will result in a more precise measure of phonological overlap in
sign languages that can be used in sign processing studies. Moreover, the results from
the priming experiment will provide further insight in the nature and size of cohorts of
signs that are active during sign processing, and lead to a better understanding of the
differential role of phonological parameters in sign recognition.
References
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Figure 1a
Figure 1b
Figure 1c