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This was a pilot study which explores the potential for using a computer with a web camera to assist people in learning a signed language. A web camera was used in this experiment with 11 participants to determine user’s perceptions of their learning when they were able to see themselves compared with when they could only see a presenter. This research found very mixed user’s perceptions of seeing themselves on screen and if they found it useful to learning or not. There were also differences in people’s reaction to seeing themselves on screen. The majority of participants found that they could see the signs made by the presenter clearly and they could also see themselves making the signs clearly. Participants described issues with the photo display versus the mirroring effect making it confusing to work out which hand to use.
Preferences for learningSixty four percent of participants indicated that they thought that seeing themselves helped them to learn the signs. This is the same percentage of participants that indicated that they noticed more detail when they could see themselves. Only fifty-five percent however indicated that seeing themselves helped them to learn the signs more accurately. This in interesting as two participant noticed more detail but did not think that it lead to them learning the signs more accurately. Potentially this indicates that seeing oneself helps learners to notice more details which would increase the accuracy of learning if the participants were given longer for the learning process. One participant indicated that initially they were mainly concerned about remembering the main gesture for each sign rather than the fine detail correctly. Repeated used of the sign language learning mirror may improve the accuracy of learning. This also indicates stages of learning the first part being remembering the main aspects of the sign and then learners start to consider the detail. Feelings about seeing themselves on screen
Some degree of reactivity to seeing themselves on screen was expected from the participants (Ellis, 2008). Fifty-five percent did not mind seeing themselves compared with forty-five percent who had a more negative reaction. One of the negative reactions was related to being distracted by seeing themselves on the screen. The other negative reactions were more to do with self-consciousness. There is some interesting research potential on people’s reaction if they see an avatar of themselves rather than a video. It would also be interesting to conduct research on gender differences.
Sign direction: photographic display versus mirroring
Only twenty-seven percent of participants had any concerns regarding the direction of the sign. When a person looks in a mirror and lifts their right hand the reflected image shows the hand being raised on the same side. When a video is used to show a participant what they are doing the image is actually on the opposite side as in a photograph; for example if a person raises their right hand the video image will show the person raising their hand on the other side. This effect was expected to cause cognitive dissonance for most users but this is not reflected in the results. Further work could be done in this area highlighting it further for participants by giving them the option to choose which direction the image is shown.
Collaborators
Project Lead
- Dr Kirsten Ellis
- Dr Jan Carlo Barca
Funding
None
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Publications
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