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Handbook of Clinical Neurology 2022Signed languages are naturally occurring, fully formed linguistic systems that rely on the movement of the hands, arms, torso, and face within a sign space for... (Review)
Review
Signed languages are naturally occurring, fully formed linguistic systems that rely on the movement of the hands, arms, torso, and face within a sign space for production, and are perceived predominantly using visual perception. Despite stark differences in modality and linguistic structure, functional neural organization is strikingly similar to spoken language. Generally speaking, left frontal areas support sign production, and regions in the auditory cortex underlie sign comprehension-despite signers not relying on audition to process language. Given this, should a deaf or hearing signer suffer damage to the left cerebral hemisphere, language is vulnerable to impairment. Multiple cases of sign language aphasia have been documented following left hemisphere injury, and the general pattern of linguistic deficits mirrors those observed in spoken language. The right hemisphere likely plays a role in non-linguistic but critical visuospatial functions of sign language; therefore, individuals who are spared from damage to the left hemisphere but suffer injury to the right are at risk for a different set of communication deficits. In this chapter, we review the neurobiology of sign language and patterns of language deficits that follow brain injury in the deaf signing population.
Topics: Aphasia; Deafness; Humans; Language; Sign Language; Vision, Ocular; Visual Perception
PubMed: 35078607
DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-823384-9.00019-0 -
Topics in Cognitive Science Jan 2015Zinacantec Family Homesign (Z) is a new sign language emerging spontaneously over the past three decades in a single family in a remote Mayan Indian village. Three deaf...
Zinacantec Family Homesign (Z) is a new sign language emerging spontaneously over the past three decades in a single family in a remote Mayan Indian village. Three deaf siblings, their Tzotzil-speaking age-mates, and now their children, who have had contact with no other deaf people, represent the first generation of Z signers. I postulate an augmented grammaticalization path, beginning with the adoption of a Tzotzil cospeech holophrastic gesture-meaning "come!"-into Z, and then its apparent stylization as an attention-getting sign, followed by grammatical regimentation and pragmatic generalization as an utterance initial change of speaker or turn marker.
Topics: Adult; Aged; Child; Family Characteristics; Female; Gestures; Humans; Language Development; Linguistics; Male; Mexico; Middle Aged; Pedigree; Persons With Hearing Impairments; Sign Language; Young Adult
PubMed: 25627101
DOI: 10.1111/tops.12126 -
Revue de L'infirmiere 2017
Topics: Community Integration; Deafness; France; Humans; Nurse-Patient Relations; Sign Language
PubMed: 28599716
DOI: 10.1016/j.revinf.2017.04.019 -
CoDAS 2021
Topics: Deafness; Humans; Language Therapy; Multilingualism; Persons With Hearing Impairments; Sign Language
PubMed: 33909844
DOI: 10.1590/2317-1782/20202020248 -
Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Aug 2021AI technologies can play an important role in breaking down the communication barriers of deaf or hearing-impaired people with other communities, contributing... (Review)
Review
AI technologies can play an important role in breaking down the communication barriers of deaf or hearing-impaired people with other communities, contributing significantly to their social inclusion. Recent advances in both sensing technologies and AI algorithms have paved the way for the development of various applications aiming at fulfilling the needs of deaf and hearing-impaired communities. To this end, this survey aims to provide a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art methods in sign language capturing, recognition, translation and representation, pinpointing their advantages and limitations. In addition, the survey presents a number of applications, while it discusses the main challenges in the field of sign language technologies. Future research direction are also proposed in order to assist prospective researchers towards further advancing the field.
Topics: Algorithms; Artificial Intelligence; Humans; Prospective Studies; Sign Language
PubMed: 34502733
DOI: 10.3390/s21175843 -
Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Nov 2023This paper proposes, analyzes, and evaluates a deep learning architecture based on transformers for generating sign language motion from sign phonemes (represented using...
This paper proposes, analyzes, and evaluates a deep learning architecture based on transformers for generating sign language motion from sign phonemes (represented using HamNoSys: a notation system developed at the University of Hamburg). The sign phonemes provide information about sign characteristics like hand configuration, localization, or movements. The use of sign phonemes is crucial for generating sign motion with a high level of details (including finger extensions and flexions). The transformer-based approach also includes a stop detection module for predicting the end of the generation process. Both aspects, motion generation and stop detection, are evaluated in detail. For motion generation, the dynamic time warping distance is used to compute the similarity between two landmarks sequences (ground truth and generated). The stop detection module is evaluated considering detection accuracy and ROC (receiver operating characteristic) curves. The paper proposes and evaluates several strategies to obtain the system configuration with the best performance. These strategies include different padding strategies, interpolation approaches, and data augmentation techniques. The best configuration of a fully automatic system obtains an average DTW distance per frame of 0.1057 and an area under the ROC curve (AUC) higher than 0.94.
Topics: Humans; Algorithms; Sign Language; Motion; Movement; Hand
PubMed: 38067738
DOI: 10.3390/s23239365 -
The Behavioral and Brain Sciences Oct 2022An ideography is a general-purpose code made of pictures that do not encode language, which can be used autonomously - not just as a mnemonic prop - to encode...
An ideography is a general-purpose code made of pictures that do not encode language, which can be used autonomously - not just as a mnemonic prop - to encode information on a broad range of topics. Why are viable ideographies so hard to find? I contend that self-sufficient graphic codes need to be narrowly specialized. Writing systems are only an apparent exception: At their core, they are notations of a spoken language. Even if they also encode nonlinguistic information, they are useless to someone who lacks linguistic competence in the encoded language or a related one. The versatility of writing is thus vicarious: Writing borrows it from spoken language. Why is it so difficult to build a fully generalist graphic code? The most widespread answer points to a learnability problem. We possess specialized cognitive resources for learning spoken language, but lack them for graphic codes. I argue in favor of a different account: What is difficult about graphic codes is not so much learning or teaching them as getting every user to learn and teach the same code. This standardization problem does not affect spoken or signed languages as much. Those are based on cheap and transient signals, allowing for easy online repairing of miscommunication, and require face-to-face interactions where the advantages of common ground are maximized. Graphic codes lack these advantages, which makes them smaller in size and more specialized.
Topics: Humans; Language; Learning; Sign Language; Communication
PubMed: 36254782
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X22002801 -
The Behavioral and Brain Sciences Oct 2023Morin argues that fully fledged ideography is hindered by a problem of standardization. In general, the argument makes a great deal of sense, but we find that it is...
Morin argues that fully fledged ideography is hindered by a problem of standardization. In general, the argument makes a great deal of sense, but we find that it is easier to grasp if, unlike the author, we consider ideography a language - one whose symbols (graphs) are not as effortless to produce as those of spoken and sign languages (phones, gestures).
Topics: Humans; Language; Sign Language; Language Development; Gestures; Dissent and Disputes
PubMed: 37779290
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X23000584 -
Acta Psychologica Jul 2020Motor simulation has emerged as a mechanism for both predictive action perception and language comprehension. By deriving a motor command, individuals can predictively...
Motor simulation has emerged as a mechanism for both predictive action perception and language comprehension. By deriving a motor command, individuals can predictively represent the outcome of an unfolding action as a forward model. Evidence of simulation can be seen via improved participant performance for stimuli that conform to the participant's individual characteristics (an egocentric bias). There is little evidence, however, from individuals for whom action and language take place in the same modality: sign language users. The present study asked signers and nonsigners to shadow (perform actions in tandem with various models), and the delay between the model and participant ("lag time") served as an indicator of the strength of the predictive model (shorter lag time = more robust model). This design allowed us to examine the role of (a) motor simulation during action prediction, (b) linguistic status in predictive representations (i.e., pseudosigns vs. grooming gestures), and (c) language experience in generating predictions (i.e., signers vs. nonsigners). An egocentric bias was only observed under limited circumstances: when nonsigners began shadowing grooming gestures. The data do not support strong motor simulation proposals, and instead highlight the role of (a) production fluency and (b) manual rhythm for signer productions. Signers showed significantly faster lag times for the highly skilled pseudosign model and increased temporal regularity (i.e., lower standard deviations) compared to nonsigners. We conclude sign language experience may (a) reduce reliance on motor simulation during action observation, (b) attune users to prosodic cues (c) and induce temporal regularities during action production.
Topics: Cues; Gestures; Humans; Language; Linguistics; Sign Language
PubMed: 32531500
DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103092 -
Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf... Sep 2023Some studies have concluded that sign language hinders spoken language development for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children even though sign language exposure could...
Some studies have concluded that sign language hinders spoken language development for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children even though sign language exposure could protect DHH children from experiencing language deprivation. Furthermore, this research has rarely considered the bilingualism of children learning a signed and a spoken language. Here we compare spoken English development in 2-6-year-old deaf and hearing American Sign Language-English bilingual children to each other and to monolingual English speakers in a comparison database. Age predicted bilinguals' language scores on all measures, whereas hearing status was only significant for one measure. Both bilingual groups tended to score below monolinguals. Deaf bilinguals' scores differed more from monolinguals, potentially because of later age of and less total exposure to English, and/or to hearing through a cochlear implant. Overall, these results are consistent with typical early bilingual language development. Research and practice must treat signing-speaking children as bilinguals and consider the bilingual language development literature.
Topics: Child; Humans; Child, Preschool; Sign Language; Language; Language Development; Multilingualism; Hearing
PubMed: 37516457
DOI: 10.1093/deafed/enad026