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Neural representations of semantic and phonological structure of British Sign Language and their relation to reading in adult deaf signers
Poster Session A, Wednesday, September 30, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm, Wangari Maathai
This poster is part of the Sandbox Series.
Samuel Evans1, Brennan Terhune-Cotter1, Cathy J Price1, Patrick Rosenburg1, Meaghan Spedden1, Mairéad MacSweeney1; 1University College London
Reading ability varies substantially among deaf individuals (Wauters et al., 2006). In deaf signers, reading skill is positively associated with sign language vocabulary (Sehyr & Emmorey, 2022) and awareness of sign phonology, i.e. the sublexical structure of signs (McQuarrie & Abbott, 2013). Understanding how (1) semantic and (2) phonological representations of sign language support reading is important in identifying mechanisms that underpin literacy development in deaf people. (1) We have shown that in hearing early sign–speech bilinguals, spoken words and signs share neural representations for semantic categories (e.g. animals), but not individual conceptual items (e.g. cat), in the left posterior middle and inferior temporal cortex (Evans et al., 2019). It remains unclear whether this failure to identify shared representations for individual concepts reflects differences between auditory (spoken) and visual (signed) modalities or participants’ hearing status. Using signs and written text, that are both presented in the visual modality, the current study tests whether shared semantic categories and conceptual representations can be identified in deaf readers. (2) fMRI studies indicate that activity in the superior temporal and inferior parietal cortex is associated with processing sign phonology (Cardin et al. 2016; MacSweeney et al., 2008). Studies have also shown that sign phonology influences reading at behavioural and neural levels (Morford et al., 2011; Meade et al. 2017) and that cross-linguistic interactions between text and sign are linked to internal simulation of signs (Quandt & Kubicek, 2018). Here we test whether sign phonology is also simulated when deaf signers read English. Methods: We will recruit a group of adult deaf early signers of British Sign Language (BSL). During 3T fMRI scanning, participants will view conceptual items from two semantic categories (animals and household objects) presented as BSL signs and as written English words. They will be required to perform an occasional semantic task (e.g., does the previous item have a tail?). Sign stimuli will vary systematically in two phonological features: handshape and broad movement category. Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA) will be used to test for fits of the neural data to semantic and phonological models. We will test for shared representational structure between corresponding signs and text. We will assess whether stronger cross-modal representational structure predicts better reading ability measured outside the scanner. Predictions: (1) Neural representations for both semantic categories and individual conceptual items will be shared for sign and text in the left posterior middle and inferior temporal cortex and greater cross-modal item-level alignment will be linked to better reading. (2) Representations engaged by viewing sign language phonology will be simulated, in the superior temporal and inferior parietal cortex, when reading English text and the strength of these representations will be related to reading skill. Together, these findings will provide insight into understanding how sign-based representations may support literacy in deaf individuals.
Topic Areas: Signed Language and Gesture, Reading