Effects of Sign Language Experience on Categorical Perception of Dynamic ASL Pseudosigns
Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics 2010, 72 (3), 747-762 doi:10.3758/APP.72.3.747 Effects of sign language experience on categorical perception of dynamic ASL pseudosigns CATHERINE T. BEST University of Western Sydney, Penrith, New South Wales, Australia and Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, Connecticut GAURAV MATHUR Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C. and Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, Connecticut KAREN A. M IRANDA Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, Boston, Massachusetts AND DIANE LI ll O -MARTIN University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut and Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, Connecticut We investigated effects of sign language experience on deaf and hearing participants’ categorical perception of minimal manual contrast stimuli that met key criteria of speech perception research. A continuum of meaningless dynamic stimuli was created with a morphing approach, which manipulated videorecorded productions of phono- tactically permissible pseudosigns differing between American Sign Language (ASL) handshapes that contrast on a single articulatory dimension (U–V: finger-spreading). AXB discrimination and AXB categorization and goodness ratings on the target items were completed by deaf early (native) signers (DE), deaf late (nonnative) signers (DL), hearing late (L2) signers (HL), and hearing nonsigners (HN). Categorization and goodness functions were less categorical and had different boundaries for DL participants than for DE and HL participants. Shape and level of discrimination functions also differed by ASL experience and hearing status, with DL signers showing better perfor- mance than DE, HL, and especially HN participants, particularly at the U end of the continuum. Although no group displayed a peak in discrimination at the category boundary, thus failing to support classic categorical perception, discrimination was consistent with categorization in other ways that differed among the groups.
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