By studying the electrophysiology of printed letter and fingerspelling font recognition using event related potentials (ERP/EEG), we gain better understanding of the nature of orthographic processing in deaf individuals which has important implications for improving literacy for deaf readers.
Letter recognition plays an important role in reading and follows different phases of processing, from early visual feature processing through to the processing of abstract letter representations. In masked priming ERP studies, related letter pairs have been shown to elicit less positive-going waveforms than unrelated pairs, and amplitude was modulated as a function of case consistency between prime and target (starting at ~120ms) or as a function of abstract letter identity (220-300ms). Deaf ASL signers can also represent orthography indirectly using fingerspelling. In a single letter, supraliminal unmasked paradigm, Experiment 1 examined letter to letter ERP priming effects in deaf signers versus hearing non-signers. Experiment 2 explored the differences and interactivity between letter and fingerspelling processing in deaf signers by comparing priming effects between letters and fingerspelling fonts. ERPs were recorded over 29 scalp sites while participants performed a probe detection task. Targets were presented centrally for 200ms immediately preceded by a 100ms prime. Experiment 1 results revealed almost identical letter to letter priming effects between groups, replicating previous findings observed for hearing non-signers by Petit et al. (2006). Small differences between deaf and hearing participants in scalp distribution of the priming effects suggested a possible influence of deafness and/or signed language. Experiment 2 revealed that fingerspelling font primed English letters, but English letters did not prime fingerspelling. This pattern is consistent with previous research indicating that deaf ASL signers recode fingerspelled words into English in short-term memory, whereas printed words are not recoded as fingerspelling (Sevcikova Sehyr, Petrich, & Emmorey, 2016) and might have important implications for skilled reading in deaf population.
*This project is generously supported by NIH and Dr. Emmorey's LLCN lab. Earlier version of this project was presented at the Society for the Neurobiology Conference (SNL) 10th Annual Meeting in Quebec, August 16-18, 2018.
Zed Sehyr is supported by the SNL 2018 Travel Award www.neurolang.org/2018/2018-award-winners/
Sehyr, Sevcikova Z., Renna, J., Osmond, S., Midgley, K. J., Holcomb, P. J., & Emmorey, K. (2018) Priming effects between fingerspelled fonts and printed letters. Poster presented at the Society for the Neurobiology Conference (SNL) 10th Annual Meeting in Quebec, August 16-18, 2018.
Letter recognition plays an important role in reading and follows different phases of processing, from early visual feature processing through to the processing of abstract letter representations. In masked priming ERP studies, related letter pairs have been shown to elicit less positive-going waveforms than unrelated pairs, and amplitude was modulated as a function of case consistency between prime and target (starting at ~120ms) or as a function of abstract letter identity (220-300ms). Deaf ASL signers can also represent orthography indirectly using fingerspelling. In a single letter, supraliminal unmasked paradigm, Experiment 1 examined letter to letter ERP priming effects in deaf signers versus hearing non-signers. Experiment 2 explored the differences and interactivity between letter and fingerspelling processing in deaf signers by comparing priming effects between letters and fingerspelling fonts. ERPs were recorded over 29 scalp sites while participants performed a probe detection task. Targets were presented centrally for 200ms immediately preceded by a 100ms prime. Experiment 1 results revealed almost identical letter to letter priming effects between groups, replicating previous findings observed for hearing non-signers by Petit et al. (2006). Small differences between deaf and hearing participants in scalp distribution of the priming effects suggested a possible influence of deafness and/or signed language. Experiment 2 revealed that fingerspelling font primed English letters, but English letters did not prime fingerspelling. This pattern is consistent with previous research indicating that deaf ASL signers recode fingerspelled words into English in short-term memory, whereas printed words are not recoded as fingerspelling (Sevcikova Sehyr, Petrich, & Emmorey, 2016) and might have important implications for skilled reading in deaf population.
*This project is generously supported by NIH and Dr. Emmorey's LLCN lab. Earlier version of this project was presented at the Society for the Neurobiology Conference (SNL) 10th Annual Meeting in Quebec, August 16-18, 2018.
Zed Sehyr is supported by the SNL 2018 Travel Award www.neurolang.org/2018/2018-award-winners/
Sehyr, Sevcikova Z., Renna, J., Osmond, S., Midgley, K. J., Holcomb, P. J., & Emmorey, K. (2018) Priming effects between fingerspelled fonts and printed letters. Poster presented at the Society for the Neurobiology Conference (SNL) 10th Annual Meeting in Quebec, August 16-18, 2018.
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