SIGN LANGUAGE IN THE BRAIN

Sign language in the brain



Sign Language in the Brain

Question 1

In what ways are signed and spoken languages represented similarly or differently in the brain?

Sign language presents interesting challenges and questions for the field of cognitive psychology because it defies coherent categorization in terms of cognition. It does not fit with the standard conception of language, yet it parallels spoken language and diverges from motor processing in unexpected ways. Production of signed language also appears to use language-oriented brain structures situated in the left hemisphere of the brain, not right-brain motor-oriented ones. In fact, damage to language-oriented areas manifests in identical language deficiencies, in deaf signers and hearing non-signers, while right-brain damage disrupting spatial tasks appears not to affect signed language production or reception at all. (Lane, Hoffmeister, & Bahan, 1996)

Brain imaging techniques can provide another valuable perspective in the study of signed and spoken language and may prove especially useful in recall experiments. Although there is evidence supporting similarity in brain activity when learning and comprehending the language (Newman-Norlund et al, 2006), such testing has not been done in the task of short-term recall. Experiments, using brain imaging, would be best performed multiple times on hearing signers, in order for brain activity during signed and spoken recall tasks; this could be compared for participants. The resulting images of brain activity could be compared for any differences in activity patterns in parts of the brain, such as Wernicke's area (concerned with language reception) and Broca's area (concerned with language production), as well as differences in areas of the brain, concerned with visual or sensor motor processing. This analysis would be best carried out in two experiments: one serial-recall experiment using hearing nonsigners, deaf signers, and hearing signers, and one brain imaging experiment performed on hearing signers alone.

Question 2

What are some of the effects of right-hemisphere damage on sign use?

Right Hemisphere Brain Damage (RHBD) can result in deficits of cognition, perception, attention, affect, and communication (see Myers, 1999; Lehman Blake, 2005, for a broad introduction). Communication disorders subsequent to RHBD have been reported to affect lexico-semantic processing, prosody, inferencing, humour, discourse organization, and pragmatics. A great deal of effort has been dedicated to investigating discourse and pragmatics in particular, and this has led some researchers to put forward diagnostic labels including 'pragmatic aphasia' and 'apragmatism' in aid of capturing the scope and deficits involved with RHBD (Myers, ...