Department of Neuroscience, The Frederick A. and Marion J. Schindler Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, The Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.
Educational Neuroscience, Gallaudet University.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2024 Oct;153(10):2378-2393. doi: 10.1037/xge0001635.
This study investigates how American Sign Language (ASL) fluency and hearing status influence the perception of biological motion, using three point-light display (PLD) tasks. Prior research indicates that early exposure to ASL among deaf signers results in more rapid and effortless recognition of biological motion than hearing nonsigners, potentially due to the expertise in deciphering complex human movements or possibly due to neuroplasticity in deaf brains. However, it remains uncertain whether this advantage stems from signed language proficiency or the experience of being deaf. To explore this, we designed three PLD tasks involving viewing randomly moving dots, identifying a person from biological motion PLDs, and determining whether right-side up and inverted PLDs depict actions involving a ball. A diverse cohort of participants (N = 224) with varying ASL fluencies and hearing statuses completed the tasks online, providing us with reaction time and accuracy data. Our results demonstrate that earlier ASL exposure is associated with accuracy, especially on complex action identification tasks. Furthermore, we discovered robust evidence for a speed-accuracy trade-off in deaf participants, in which they performed more quickly but less accurately. The speed-accuracy trade-off was evident in the most difficult task, the action identification task. Further analysis of this deaf group revealed that earlier signed language acquisition led to higher accuracy in action identification task. We conclude that age of ASL exposure and hearing status both significantly contribute to variations in biological motion perception, with implications for understanding visual expertise and cognitive processing in both deaf and signing populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
本研究通过三个三点光照（PLD）任务，调查了美国手语（ASL）流利程度和听力状况如何影响对生物运动的感知。先前的研究表明，失聪的手语使用者在早期接触 ASL 后，对生物运动的识别速度更快，也更轻松，这可能是由于他们擅长破译复杂的人体动作，也可能是由于失聪大脑的神经可塑性。然而，目前尚不清楚这种优势是源自手语熟练度还是失聪经历。为了探究这一点，我们设计了三个 PLD 任务，涉及随机移动点的观察、从生物运动 PLD 中识别人物，以及确定正向和倒置的 PLD 是否描绘了涉及球的动作。一个由具有不同 ASL 熟练度和听力状况的多样化参与者（N=224）组成的群体在线完成了这些任务，为我们提供了反应时间和准确性数据。我们的结果表明，早期接触 ASL 与准确性相关，尤其是在复杂动作识别任务上。此外，我们发现失聪参与者存在明显的速度-准确性权衡，他们的表现更快但准确性较低。这种速度-准确性权衡在最困难的任务——动作识别任务中表现明显。对这个失聪群体的进一步分析表明，早期手语习得导致了动作识别任务中更高的准确性。我们得出结论，ASL 接触的年龄和听力状况都显著影响生物运动感知的变化，这对理解失聪和手语人群的视觉专业知识和认知处理都有影响。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2024 APA，保留所有权利）。
