Discourse Deficits Following Right Hemisphere Damage in Deaf Signers

doi:10.1006/BRLN.1998.1995

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Discourse Deficits Following Right Hemisphere Damage in Deaf Signers

Journal Article•DOI•

Discourse Deficits Following Right Hemisphere Damage in Deaf Signers

Gregory Hickok¹, Gregory Hickok², Margaret Wilson³, Kevin Clark², Edward S. Klima⁴, Edward S. Klima², Mark Kritchevsky⁴, Ursula Bellugi² - Show less +4 more•Institutions (4)

University of California, Irvine¹, Salk Institute for Biological Studies², North Dakota State University³, University of California, San Diego⁴

01 Feb 1999-Brain and Language (Academic Press)-Vol. 66, Iss: 2, pp 233-248

TL;DR: It is concluded that, as in the hearing population, discourse functions involve the right hemisphere; that distinct discourse functions can be dissociated from one another in ASL; and that brain organization for linguistic spatial devices is driven by its functional role in language processing, rather than by its surface, spatial characteristics.

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About: This article is published in Brain and Language.The article was published on 1999-02-01 and is currently open access. It has received 44 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Spatial cognition & Spatial ability.

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Figures (4)

FIG. 8. Samples of AR and SJ’s drawings and block designs, showing deficits in spatial processing in both RHD deaf subjects.

FIG. 6. Contrasting types of discourse errors in the two RHD deaf signers: Tangential utterances are very frequent in AR (60% of utterances) but essentially absent in SJ (left) and spatial errors in ASL discourse mechanisms are minimal in AR but rampant in SJ (right).

FIG. 1. Linguistic contrasts in ASL involving crucial use of space at the lexical level, the morphological level, and the syntactic level.

FIG. 5. Sample pictures from ‘‘Paint Story,’’ a wordless picture sequence designed to elicit spatialized discourse mechanisms of ASL.

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Book Chapter•DOI•

How the Brain Processes Language in Different Modalities

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Bencie Woll

17 Feb 2009

TL;DR: In this paper, the neuroimaging and aphasia data are used to explore the ''core language system'' - the regions of the brains used for language regardless of modality.

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Abstract: Establishing which neural systems support processing of sign languages informs a number of important neuroscience and linguistic questions. In this chapter, the linguistic structure of sign languages is introduced with a discussion of common myths about sign languages. This is followed by a more detailed discussion of the linguistics of British Sign Language, with special reference to features which resemble or contrast with spoken languages. The final section describes language and the brain by describing a number of neuroimaging studies with signers and research on signers who have aphasia or other language deficits following strokes. The neuroimaging and aphasia data are used to explore the `core language system' - the regions of the brains used for language regardless of modality.

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3 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

The neural correlates of highly iconic structures and topographic discourse in French Sign Language as observed in six hearing native signers.

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Cyril Courtin, Pierre-Yves Hervé, Laurent Petit, Laure Zago, Mathieu Vigneau, Virginie Beaucousin, Gaël Jobard, Bernard Mazoyer¹, Emmanuel Mellet, Nathalie Tzourio-Mazoyer - Show less +6 more•Institutions (1)

Institut Universitaire de France¹

01 Sep 2010-Brain and Language

TL;DR: For instance, this paper used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare the neural correlates of topographic discourse and highly iconic structures in French Sign Language (LSF) in six hearing native signers, children of deaf adults (CODAs), and six LSF-naive monolinguals.

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3 citations

Cites result from "Discourse Deficits Following Right ..."

...spatial discourse organization during narration (Hickok et al., 1999), which is consistent with the larger right parietal involvement during Tale LSF minus Lect LSF....
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Vision- and Manipulation-based Signs in Taiwan Sign Language *

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Yi-Hsuan Chiu, Jen Chuen Hsieh, Wen Jui Kuo, Daisy L. Hung, Ovid J.L. Tzeng - Show less +1 more

01 Apr 2005

TL;DR: In this paper, an fMRI experiment was conducted to investigate how iconic elements are represented in sign languages and how such representation affects the linkage between language and brain, where deaf participants viewed line drawings and were asked to covertly produce the names of the pictures either in Taiwan Sign Language (TSL) or in Chinese.

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Abstract: An fMRI experiment was conducted to investigate how iconic elements are represented in sign languages and how such representation affects the linkage between language and brain. Iconic signs are those that clearly resemble the actions, objects, or characteristics they represent. In Taiwan Sign Language (TSL), expressions involve two kinds of signs: vision-based signs and manipulation- based signs. It is proposed that these two kinds of signs impose different processing demands on the signers. In our experiment, deaf signers viewed line drawings and were asked to covertly produce the names of the pictures either in TSL or in Chinese. Brain activities were measured with an fMRI technique. Analyses of the neural images indicated that the neural systems involved in the production of TSL and Chinese words were remarkably similar, in that the dorsal visual route and perisylvian areas were important in processing both languages for our deaf participants. On the other hand, the neural substrates mediating the representation of objects and/or action took different dynamically distributed forms, depending on which sensory/perceptual channels were required to weight the input information for recognition. In addition, results also suggested that the characteristics of signs (i.e., vision-based vs. manipulation-based) correlated with functional arrangements (i.e., visual vs. motor pathway) of the cerebral cortex, indicating that the brain not only represents the structural knowledge of the linguistic categories (syntactic and/or the semantic categories), but also involves the dynamic processes which characterize the interaction between modality and conceptual representation.

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2 citations

Cites background from "Discourse Deficits Following Right ..."

...…strongly left-hemisphere dominant patterns, while studies of comprehension tend to show more bilateral effects (Bavelier et al. 1998, Braun et al. 2001, Caplan 2000, Corina et al. 1998, Corina & McBurney 2001, Hickok et al. 1999, Levanen et al. 2001, Newman et al. 2002, Petitto et al. 2000)....
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Book Chapter•DOI•

Chapter 5. Atypical sign language development

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Chloë Marshall, Katherine Rowley, Joanna Atkinson, Tanya Denmark, Joanna Hoskins, Jechil Sieratzki - Show less +2 more

15 Feb 2020

2 citations

Book Chapter•DOI•

Cerebral representation of language

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Michel Paradis

26 May 2003

1 citations

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References

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Book•

The signs of language

[...]

Edward S. Klima, Ursula Bellugi

01 Jan 1979

TL;DR: The two faces of sign and sign language have been studied in this paper, where the authors compare Chinese and American signs and feature analysis of handshapes and the rate of speaking and signing.

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Abstract: Introduction PART I: The Two Faces of Sign 1. Iconicity in Signs and Signing 2. Properties of Symbols in a Silent Language 3. Historical Change: From Iconic to Arbitrary PART II: The Structure of the Sign 4. Remembering without Words: Manual Memory 5. Slips of the Hands 6. A Comparison of Chinese and American Signs 7. A Feature Analysis of Handshapes 8. The Rate of Speaking and Signing PART III: Grammatical Processes 9. On the Creation of New Lexical Items by Compounding 10. Linguistic Expression of Category Levels 11. Aspectual Modulations on Adjectival Predicates 12. The Structured Use of Space and Movement: Morphological Processes PART IV: The Heightened Use of Language 13. Wit and Plays on Signs 14. Poetry and Song in a Language without Sound Appendix A: Notation Appendix B: Conventions Employed in Illustrations Notes References Index

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1,598 citations

"Discourse Deficits Following Right ..." refers background in this paper

...The sublexical units from which signs are composed are often articulated simultaneously rather than sequentially, and spatial location contrasts certain pairs of minimally different signs (Klima & Bellugi, 1979, Chap....
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...2); morphological inflections of signs generally alter the movement path of the sign, rather than concatenating morphemic units across time (Klima & Bellugi, 1979, Chap....
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...At the morphological level, ASL has grammatical markers that serve as inflectional and derivational morphemes; these are regular changes in form across classes of lexical items associated with systematic changes in meaning (Klima & Bellugi, 1979)....
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Journal Article•DOI•

The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition

[...]

Dan I. Slobin

23 Jan 1987-The Modern Language Journal

1,385 citations

Book•

What the hands reveal about the brain

[...]

Howard Poizner¹, Edward S. Klima, Ursula Bellugi•Institutions (1)

Salk Institute for Biological Studies¹

01 Jan 1987

TL;DR: This paper showed that there are primary linguistic systems passed down from one generation of deaf people to the next, which have been forged into antonomous languages and are not derived from front spoken languages.

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Abstract: What the Hands Reveal About the Brain provides dramatic evidence that language is not limited to hearing and speech, that there are primary linguistic systems passed down from one generation of deaf people to the next, which have been forged into antonomous languages and are not derived front spoken languages.

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579 citations

"Discourse Deficits Following Right ..." refers background in this paper

...…tasks, while the right lesioned signers exhibit marked deficits involving left neglect, loss of perspective, loss of the overall configuration of the figure, etc. (Hickok et al., 1995; Hickok et al., 1996; Poizner & Kegl, 1993; Bellugi, Poizner, & Klima, 1989, 1990; Poizner et al., 1987)....
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...But while RHD signers do not present with aphasia for sign at the lexical, morphological, or syntactic level, they do show significant deficits in nonlinguistic visuospatial processing (Bellugi & Hickok, 1995; Hickok et al., 1996; Poizner et al., 1987)....
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...The RHD deaf signers are much like the controls, while the LHD deaf signers show a range of different sign language aphasias (Poizner et al., 1987)....
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Clinical neuropsychology, 3rd ed.

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Kenneth M. Heilman, Edward Valenstein

01 Jan 1993

421 citations

Book Chapter•DOI•

The acquisition of American Sign Language.

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Elissa L. Newport, Richard P. Meier

01 Jan 1985

TL;DR: The authors compare the acquisition of American Sign Language (ASLSA) with the acquisition process of spoken languages, and delineate those aspects of acquisition which are universal over languages of varying types, and those aspects which are specific to certain linguistic and modality-related typologies.

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Abstract: American Sign Language (ASL) is a fully grammaticized language, not a pantomimic communication system, and it displays the various grammatical characteristics typically found in spoken languages of the world, despite the apparent potential for a different type of organization offered by the visual-gestural modalities. Unlike English, ASL is a morphologically complex language, perhaps most comparable to polysynthetic spoken languages. The study of ASL acquisition may shed unique light on language acquisition processes more generally: comparisons of the acquisition of American Sign Language with the acquisition of spoken languages may help to delineate those aspects of acquisition which are universal over languages of varying types, and those aspects of acquisition which are specific to certain linguistic and modality-related typologies. Before reviewing the literature on the acquisition of ASL, this chapter describes the structure of the language.

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420 citations