Cross-Linguistic Differences in the Neural Representation of Human Language: Evidence from Users of Signed Languages

Corina, David P.; Lawyer, Laurel A.; Cates, Deborah

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00587

Cited by 22 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 66 publications

(93 reference statements)

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“…The unique right anterior distribution of the N400-like effect of phonological relatedness of implicitly co-activated signs suggests the involvement of distinct neural generators for processing phonological form in a visual-manual language. This result provides further evidence that the neurobiology of language processing is impacted by the distinct linguistic articulators employed by signed versus spoken languages (see Corina et al, 2013, for review). Moreover, once activated, the non-target ASL translation equivalents were not robustly suppressed, as reflected in behavioral interference effects that have not been reported in previous studies with unimodal bilinguals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

“…Further supporting this possibility is ongoing work in our lab in which we have observed an anterior negative response when comparing processing of signs with high versus low iconicity in a semantic decision task with deaf ASL signers (Emmorey, Sevcikova Sehyr, Midgley, & Holcomb, 2016). Very little is known about how phonological form in a signed language is neurally instantiated, but evidence is now accumulating to suggest that the biology of the linguistic articulators (i.e., the hands vs. the vocal tract) has an impact on the neural substrate for language (e.g., Corina, Lawyer, & Cates, 2013). Documenting how these typological differences do or do not affect processing is an important step toward developing a comprehensive account of the biological basis of language (see Bornkessel-Schlesewsky & Schlesewsky, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Implicit co-activation of American Sign Language in deaf readers: An ERP study

et al. 2017

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In an implicit phonological priming paradigm, deaf bimodal bilinguals made semantic relatedness decisions for pairs of English words. Half of the semantically unrelated pairs had phonologically related translations in American Sign Language (ASL). As in previous studies with unimodal bilinguals, targets in pairs with phonologically related translations elicited smaller negativities than targets in pairs with phonologically unrelated translations within the N400 window. This suggests that the same lexicosemantic mechanism underlies implicit co-activation of a non-target language, irrespective of language modality. In contrast to unimodal bilingual studies that find no behavioral effects, we observed phonological interference, indicating that bimodal bilinguals may not suppress the non-target language as robustly. Further, there was a subset of bilinguals who were aware of the ASL manipulation (determined by debrief), and they exhibited an effect of ASL phonology in a later time window (700–900ms). Overall, these results indicate modality-independent language co-activation that persists longer for bimodal bilinguals.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implicit co-activation of American Sign Language in deaf readers: An ERP study

et al. 2017

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“…Signed languages differ dramatically from spoken languages with respect both to the articulators (the hands vs. the vocal tract) and to the perceptual system supporting comprehension (vision vs. audition). However, linguistically (Sutton-Spence & Woll, 1999), cognitively (Rudner, Andin, & Rönnberg, 2009), and neurobiologically (Corina, Lawyer, & Cates, 2012;MacSweeney, Capek, Campbell, & Woll, 2008;Söderfeldt, Rönnberg, & Risberg, 1994), there are striking similarities. Thus, studying signed languages allows sensorimotor mechanisms to be dissociated from cognitive mechanisms, both behaviorally and neurobiologically.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring Different Phonological Parameters of Sign Language Engages the Same Cortical Language Network but Distinctive Perceptual Ones

Cardin

Orfanidou

Kästner

et al. 2016

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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Abstract■ The study of signed languages allows the dissociation of sensorimotor and cognitive neural components of the language signal. Here we investigated the neurocognitive processes underlying the monitoring of two phonological parameters of sign languages: handshape and location. Our goal was to determine if brain regions processing sensorimotor characteristics of different phonological parameters of sign languages were also involved in phonological processing, with their activity being modulated by the linguistic content of manual actions. We conducted an fMRI experiment using manual actions varying in phonological structure and semantics: (1) signs of a familiar sign language (British Sign Language), (2) signs of an unfamiliar sign language (Swedish Sign Language), and (3) invented nonsigns that violate the phonological rules of British Sign Language and Swedish Sign Language or consist of nonoccurring combinations of phonological parameters. Three groups of participants were tested: deaf native signers, deaf nonsigners, and hearing nonsigners. Results show that the linguistic processing of different phonological parameters of sign language is independent of the sensorimotor characteristics of the language signal. Handshape and location were processed by different perceptual and taskrelated brain networks but recruited the same language areas. The semantic content of the stimuli did not influence this process, but phonological structure did, with nonsigns being associated with longer RTs and stronger activations in an action observation network in all participants and in the supramarginal gyrus exclusively in deaf signers. These results suggest higher processing demands for stimuli that contravene the phonological rules of a signed language, independently of previous knowledge of signed languages. We suggest that the phonological characteristics of a language may arise as a consequence of more efficient neural processing for its perception and production. ■

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“…Lesion-based, neuroimaging, and neurophysiological studies have provided strong evidence for the importance of left perisylvian regions during production and perception-comprehension of signed as well as spoken languages (Emmorey, 2001; Capek et al, 2008; MacSweeney et al, 2008; Corina et al, 2013). The left inferior frontal gyrus is involved in both sign and speech production while the left superior temporal gyrus and sulcus, in addition to the left inferior frontal gyrus, are involved in sign and spoken language perception-comprehension.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Differences related to the visual signal delivered by the articulatory gestures have been revealed between AV seen speech (lipreading) and SL perception (Emmorey, 2001; MacSweeney et al, 2008; Corina et al, 2013; Leonard et al, 2013). The kinematic characteristics of SL and AV speech are very different.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Neural Basis of Speech Perception through Lipreading and Manual Cues: Evidence from Deaf Native Users of Cued Speech

et al. 2017

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We present here the first neuroimaging data for perception of Cued Speech (CS) by deaf adults who are native users of CS. CS is a visual mode of communicating a spoken language through a set of manual cues which accompany lipreading and disambiguate it. With CS, sublexical units of the oral language are conveyed clearly and completely through the visual modality without requiring hearing. The comparison of neural processing of CS in deaf individuals with processing of audiovisual (AV) speech in normally hearing individuals represents a unique opportunity to explore the similarities and differences in neural processing of an oral language delivered in a visuo-manual vs. an AV modality. The study included deaf adult participants who were early CS users and native hearing users of French who process speech audiovisually. Words were presented in an event-related fMRI design. Three conditions were presented to each group of participants. The deaf participants saw CS words (manual + lipread), words presented as manual cues alone, and words presented to be lipread without manual cues. The hearing group saw AV spoken words, audio-alone and lipread-alone. Three findings are highlighted. First, the middle and superior temporal gyrus (excluding Heschl’s gyrus) and left inferior frontal gyrus pars triangularis constituted a common, amodal neural basis for AV and CS perception. Second, integration was inferred in posterior parts of superior temporal sulcus for audio and lipread information in AV speech, but in the occipito-temporal junction, including MT/V5, for the manual cues and lipreading in CS. Third, the perception of manual cues showed a much greater overlap with the regions activated by CS (manual + lipreading) than lipreading alone did. This supports the notion that manual cues play a larger role than lipreading for CS processing. The present study contributes to a better understanding of the role of manual cues as support of visual speech perception in the framework of the multimodal nature of human communication.

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Cross-Linguistic Differences in the Neural Representation of Human Language: Evidence from Users of Signed Languages

Cited by 22 publications

References 66 publications

Implicit co-activation of American Sign Language in deaf readers: An ERP study

Implicit co-activation of American Sign Language in deaf readers: An ERP study

Monitoring Different Phonological Parameters of Sign Language Engages the Same Cortical Language Network but Distinctive Perceptual Ones

The Neural Basis of Speech Perception through Lipreading and Manual Cues: Evidence from Deaf Native Users of Cued Speech

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