Emmorey K, Klima E, Hickok G
Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Cognition. 1998 Sep;68(3):221-46. doi: 10.1016/s0010-0277(98)00054-7.
American sign language (ASL) uses space itself to encode spatial information. Spatial scenes are most often described from the perspective of the person signing (the 'narrator'), such that the viewer must perform what amounts to a 180 degrees mental rotation to correctly comprehend the description. But scenes can also be described, non-canonically, from the viewer's perspective, in which case no rotation is required. Is mental rotation during sign language processing difficult for ASL signers? Are there differences between linguistic and non-linguistic mental rotation? Experiment 1 required subjects to decide whether a signed description matched a room presented on videotape. Deaf ASL signers were more accurate when viewing scenes described from the narrator's perspective (even though rotation is required) than from the viewer's perspective (no rotation required). In Experiment 2, deaf signers and hearing non-signers viewed videotapes of objects appearing briefly and sequentially on a board marked with an entrance. This board either matched an identical board in front of the subject or was rotated 180 degrees. Subjects were asked to place objects on their board in the orientation and location shown on the video, making the appropriate rotation when required. All subjects were significantly less accurate when rotation was required, but ASL signers performed significantly better than hearing non-signers under rotation. ASL signers were also more accurate in remembering object orientation. Signers then viewed a video in which the same scenes were signed from the two perspectives (i.e. rotation required or no rotation required). In contrast to their performance with real objects, signers did not show the typical mental rotation effect. Males outperformed females on the rotation task with objects, but the superiority disappeared in the linguistic condition. We discuss the nature of the ASL mental rotation transformation, and we conclude that habitual use of ASL can enhance non-linguistic cognitive processes thus providing evidence for (a form of) the linguistic relativity hypothesis.
美国手语（ASL）利用空间本身来编码空间信息。空间场景通常是从手语者（“叙述者”）的视角来描述的，这样观众必须进行相当于180度的心理旋转才能正确理解描述内容。但场景也可以从观众的视角进行非规范描述，在这种情况下则无需旋转。对于美国手语使用者来说，手语处理过程中的心理旋转困难吗？语言性心理旋转和非语言性心理旋转之间有差异吗？实验1要求受试者判断一个手语描述是否与录像中呈现的房间相匹配。聋人美国手语使用者在观看从叙述者视角描述的场景（即使需要旋转）时比从观众视角（无需旋转）描述的场景时更准确。在实验2中，聋人手语使用者和听力正常的非手语使用者观看了物体在标有入口的板子上短暂且依次出现的录像。这块板子要么与受试者面前的相同板子匹配，要么旋转了180度。受试者被要求将物体按照视频中显示的方向和位置放置在他们的板子上，必要时进行适当的旋转。当需要旋转时，所有受试者的准确性都显著降低，但在旋转条件下，美国手语使用者的表现明显优于听力正常的非手语使用者。美国手语使用者在记忆物体方向方面也更准确。然后，手语使用者观看了一个视频，其中相同的场景从两个视角进行了手语描述（即需要旋转或无需旋转）。与他们对真实物体的表现形成对比的是，手语使用者没有表现出典型的心理旋转效应。在物体旋转任务中男性的表现优于女性，但在语言条件下这种优势消失了。我们讨论了美国手语心理旋转转换的性质，并得出结论，习惯性使用美国手语可以增强非语言认知过程，从而为语言相对论假设（的一种形式）提供证据。
