ERP correlates of German Sign Language processing in deaf native signers

BMC Neuroscience

Brigitte Röder¹  Davide Bottari¹  Uta Salden¹  Monique Kügow¹  Nils Skotara¹  Barbara Hänel-Faulhaber² 

[1] University of Hamburg, Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, Von-Melle-Park 11, 20146 Hamburg, Germany;Rhine-Waal-University of Applied Sciences, Early Childhood Education, Marie-Curie-Str.1, 47533 Kleve, Germany

关键词: P600;    LAN;    N400;    Semantic violation;    Verb agreement;    Event-related potentials;    Native signers;    Deaf;    Sign language;   

Others  :  799305
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2202-15-62

 received in 2013-12-18, accepted in 2014-04-28,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

The present study investigated the neural correlates of sign language processing of Deaf people who had learned German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebärdensprache, DGS) from their Deaf parents as their first language. Correct and incorrect signed sentences were presented sign by sign on a computer screen. At the end of each sentence the participants had to judge whether or not the sentence was an appropriate DGS sentence. Two types of violations were introduced: (1) semantically incorrect sentences containing a selectional restriction violation (implausible object); (2) morphosyntactically incorrect sentences containing a verb that was incorrectly inflected (i.e., incorrect direction of movement). Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 74 scalp electrodes.

Results

Semantic violations (implausible signs) elicited an N400 effect followed by a positivity. Sentences with a morphosyntactic violation (verb agreement violation) elicited a negativity followed by a broad centro-parietal positivity.

Conclusions

ERP correlates of semantic and morphosyntactic aspects of DGS clearly differed from each other and showed a number of similarities with those observed in other signed and oral languages. These data suggest a similar functional organization of signed and oral languages despite the visual-spacial modality of sign language.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Hänel-Faulhaber et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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