The role of sign type, sign familiarity, and perceiver proficiency on gaze patterns during sign perception

This project is ongoing with data collection beginning Summer 2023

Background

During conversation, communication partners will often look at each other, providing a window into social cognition. In signed languages, gazing towards one’s interlocutor is necessary to capture the language visually. Proficient signers have been found to look at the signer’s face, rather than hands, while receptively viewing ASL. This study seeks to: (1) replicate findings that ASL experience drives gaze pattern during sign reception, (2) compare looking patterns during fingerspelling vs. lexicalized signs, and (3) investigate whether those looking patterns change while perceiving real, familiar ASL signs vs. unfamiliar., pseudo signs/words. Investigating the relationship between sign type, sign familiarity, and signer proficiency will inform our understanding of the trajectory of gaze patterns over time, and can inform our intervention and classroom approaches for signing deaf children and hearing ASL students. 

Methods

Signers are presented with ASL signs and fingerspelled words and asked to identify them. We use eye tracking to monitor participants’ gaze throughout the experiment. Participants are adults between the ages of 18 to 50 years old, both deaf and hearing, and of various proficiency levels to assess how signer skill influences gaze patterns. All participants must have taken the equivalent of at least ASL II. 

Implications

Our findings will add to our understanding of the factors that shape gaze patterns during sign perception.  We predict that signers will be more likely to look at the hands during fingerspelling, and specifically fingerspelling of pseudo-English words. Such findings might suggest the limits of peripheral perceptive abilities, prompting further studies into whether attending to the hands is necessary for comprehension. In addition, deepening our understanding of the gaze patterns of fluent signers can inform classroom approaches with both signing deaf children and hearing ASL students. Explicit instruction on gaze and attention can be incorporated into classroom discussion to maximize the benefit of signed input.