Viewing angle matters in British Sign Language processing
Abstract The impact of adverse listening conditions on spoken language perception is well established, but the role of suboptimal viewing conditions on signed language processing is less clear. Viewing angle, i.e. the physical orientation of a perceiver relative to a signer, varies in many everyday...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Nature Portfolio
2024-01-01
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| Series: | Scientific Reports |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-51330-1 |
| _version_ | 1797355799739105280 |
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| author | Freya Watkins Diar Abdlkarim Bodo Winter Robin L. Thompson |
| author_facet | Freya Watkins Diar Abdlkarim Bodo Winter Robin L. Thompson |
| author_sort | Freya Watkins |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract The impact of adverse listening conditions on spoken language perception is well established, but the role of suboptimal viewing conditions on signed language processing is less clear. Viewing angle, i.e. the physical orientation of a perceiver relative to a signer, varies in many everyday deaf community settings for L1 signers and may impact comprehension. Further, processing from various viewing angles may be more difficult for late L2 learners of a signed language, with less variation in sign input while learning. Using a semantic decision task in a distance priming paradigm, we show that British Sign Language signers are slower and less accurate to comprehend signs shown from side viewing angles, with L2 learners in particular making disproportionately more errors when viewing signs from side angles. We also investigated how individual differences in mental rotation ability modulate processing signs from different angles. Speed and accuracy on the BSL task correlated with mental rotation ability, suggesting that signers may mentally represent signs from a frontal view, and use mental rotation to process signs from other viewing angles. Our results extend the literature on viewpoint specificity in visual recognition to linguistic stimuli. The data suggests that L2 signed language learners should maximise their exposure to diverse signed language input, both in terms of viewing angle and other difficult viewing conditions to maximise comprehension. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T14:17:20Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-9284af8b3b724a8a90b3d28c7de4bab9 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2045-2322 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T14:17:20Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Scientific Reports |
| spelling | doaj.art-9284af8b3b724a8a90b3d28c7de4bab92024-01-14T12:21:10ZengNature PortfolioScientific Reports2045-23222024-01-0114111810.1038/s41598-024-51330-1Viewing angle matters in British Sign Language processingFreya Watkins0Diar Abdlkarim1Bodo Winter2Robin L. Thompson3School of Psychology, University of BirminghamSchool of Psychology, University of BirminghamDepartment of English Language and Linguistics, University of BirminghamSchool of Psychology, University of BirminghamAbstract The impact of adverse listening conditions on spoken language perception is well established, but the role of suboptimal viewing conditions on signed language processing is less clear. Viewing angle, i.e. the physical orientation of a perceiver relative to a signer, varies in many everyday deaf community settings for L1 signers and may impact comprehension. Further, processing from various viewing angles may be more difficult for late L2 learners of a signed language, with less variation in sign input while learning. Using a semantic decision task in a distance priming paradigm, we show that British Sign Language signers are slower and less accurate to comprehend signs shown from side viewing angles, with L2 learners in particular making disproportionately more errors when viewing signs from side angles. We also investigated how individual differences in mental rotation ability modulate processing signs from different angles. Speed and accuracy on the BSL task correlated with mental rotation ability, suggesting that signers may mentally represent signs from a frontal view, and use mental rotation to process signs from other viewing angles. Our results extend the literature on viewpoint specificity in visual recognition to linguistic stimuli. The data suggests that L2 signed language learners should maximise their exposure to diverse signed language input, both in terms of viewing angle and other difficult viewing conditions to maximise comprehension.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-51330-1 |
| spellingShingle | Freya Watkins Diar Abdlkarim Bodo Winter Robin L. Thompson Viewing angle matters in British Sign Language processing Scientific Reports |
| title | Viewing angle matters in British Sign Language processing |
| title_full | Viewing angle matters in British Sign Language processing |
| title_fullStr | Viewing angle matters in British Sign Language processing |
| title_full_unstemmed | Viewing angle matters in British Sign Language processing |
| title_short | Viewing angle matters in British Sign Language processing |
| title_sort | viewing angle matters in british sign language processing |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-51330-1 |
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