The Perceived Mapping Between Form and Meaning in American Sign Language Depends on Linguistic Knowledge and Task: Evidence from Iconicity and Transparency Judgments

Iconicity is often defined as the resemblance between a form and a given meaning, while transparency is defined as the ability to infer a given meaning based on the form. This study examined the influence of knowledge of American Sign Language (ASL) on the perceived iconicity of signs and the relationship between iconicity, transparency (correctly guessed signs), ‘perceived transparency’ (transparency ratings of the guesses), and ‘semantic potential’ (the diversity (H index) of guesses). Experiment 1 compared iconicity ratings by deaf ASL signers and hearing non-signers for 991 signs from the ASL-LEX database. Signers and non-signers’ ratings were highly correlated; however, the groups provided different iconicity ratings for subclasses of signs: nouns vs. verbs, handling vs. entity, and one- vs. two-handed signs. In Experiment 2, non-signers guessed the meaning of 430 signs and rated them for how transparent their guessed meaning would be for others. Only 10% of guesses were correct. Iconicity ratings correlated with transparency (correct guesses), perceived transparency ratings, and semantic potential (H index). Further, some iconic signs were perceived as non-transparent and vice versa. The study demonstrates that linguistic knowledge mediates perceived iconicity distinctly from gesture and highlights critical distinctions between iconicity, transparency (perceived and objective), and semantic potential

Rethinking constructed action

We aim to demonstrate the importance of defining linguistic phenomena by using constructed action or CA (i.e. a stretch of discourse that represents one role or combination of roles depicting actions, utterances, thought, attitudes and/or feelings of one or more referents) as an example. The problem is that different assumptions about CA have led to some apparent contradictions about the nature of this phenomenon. Based on observations and analyses of the British Sign Language narrative data, we outline criteria and recommendations for defining and analysing CA. We show that, in carefully defining the phenomenon in question and providing criteria for its identification, applying these criteria to usage data leads to emergence of particular types of Constructed Action. We also show how identifying these types can help resolve some of the apparent contradictions in the literature

Embrioni riba kao alternativni model u toksikologiji: revijalni pregled

Povećan broj ksenobiotika ugrožava životnu sredinu. Ova bioaktivna jedinjenja dospevaju u vodenu sredinu na različite načine i imaju značajan uticaj na akvatični živi svet. Za procenu opasnosti i rizika industrijskih hemikalija, proizvoda zaštite bilja, biocida, dodataka u hrani i lekova koriste se testovi na životinjama. Akutni test toksičnosti za ribe je obavezni korak u procesu ispitivanja toksičnosti hemikalija. Međutim njihova ekotoksikološka relevantnost je pod znakom pitanja. Povrh toga ribe se u ovim testovima podvrgavaju značajnom bolu i patnji. U skladu sa filozofijom 3r (redukcija/smanjenje, refinement/prečišćavanje, replacement/zamena) embrioni riba se smatraju metodom zamene ili prečišćavanja budući da ovi razvojni stadijumi nisu zakonski zaštićeni (Direktiva 2010/63/EU) i izgleda da osećaju manju bol i patnju. Cilj ovog pregleda bio je da se sumiraju dostupni podaci o testovima toksičnosti na embrionima riba i ukaže na moguće perspektive korišćenja ovog modela u savremenoj toksikologiji. Princip testa toksičnosti sa embrionima riba zasniva se na izloženosti vijabilnih embriona ksenobioticima, od oplođenja do kraja embriogeneze. Test toksičnosti sa embrionima riba validiran je u OECD studiji i prihvaćen kao OECD TG 236 96-h test za procenu toksičnosti za embrione riba. Određuje se letalnost koja je označena koagulacijom embriona, nedostatkom somita, ispravljanja repa ili otkucaja srca. Povrh smrtnosti, složeniji pokazatelji kao što je razvoj očiju, prisustvo krvotoka ili razvojne malformacije mogu se uočiti na stadijumima izvaljenih eleutero embriona. Mogućnost praćenja različitih pokazatelja čini embrione riba odličnim modelom za ispitivanje i razumevanje mehanizama toksičnosti i indikatorom mogućih nepovoljnih i dugotrajnih efekata. Na osnovu izvedenih istraživanja, test toksičnosti sa embrionima riba je razumna alternativa akutnom testu toksičnosti na ribama. Raspon mogućih aplikacija je značajan i ima mnogo perspektiva u budućnosti: kao što je dalja identifikacija molekularnih markera – indikatora načina delovanja ili uspostavljanje veze među efektima u kratkotrajnim testovima sa embrionima i dugotrajnih efekata na individue. Test toksičnosti sa embrionima riba takođe može da doprinese smanjenju broja eksperimenata na životinjama što je jedan od osnovnih principa EU legislative u oblasti dobrobiti

Improving Sign Recognition with Phonology

We use insights from research on American Sign Language (ASL) phonology to train models for isolated sign language recognition (ISLR), a step towards automatic sign language understanding. Our key insight is to explicitly recognize the role of phonology in sign production to achieve more accurate ISLR than existing work which does not consider sign language phonology. We train ISLR models that take in pose estimations of a signer producing a single sign to predict not only the sign but additionally its phonological characteristics, such as the handshape. These auxiliary predictions lead to a nearly 9% absolute gain in sign recognition accuracy on the WLASL benchmark, with consistent improvements in ISLR regardless of the underlying prediction model architecture. This work has the potential to accelerate linguistic research in the domain of signed languages and reduce communication barriers between deaf and hearing people

Categorical versus gradient properties of handling handshapes in British Sign Language (BSL). Evidence from handling handshape perception and production by deaf BSL signers and hearing speakers

Sign languages include partially lexicalised signs (known as depicting constructions, DCs) that have been argued to blend linguistic and non-linguistic components, although it is unclear what these components are. To describe object handling, signers produce handshapes that represent how the hands shape for handling, but it has not yet been fully established whether the continuous object size is described by discrete handshapes in British Sign Language (BSL). The thesis examines whether experience with sign language influences perception and comprehension of BSL handling handshapes. In the first study, categorical perception (CP), using the identification and ABX discrimination tasks, is examined for handling handshapes (HHs) in BSL. The experiments reveal that adult deaf BSL signers and hearing non-signers perceive continuous HHs categorically while remaining perceptive to gradient aperture changes. Deaf BSL signers were more accurate than hearing non-signers when discriminating between handshape stimuli; this is likely due to visual language experience. However, reaction times showed no processing advantage suggesting that categorisation of BSL HHs has a general, visual-perceptual rather than linguistic basis. The second study examines whether deaf BSL signers compared with hearing non-signers express and interpret gradient sizes of manipulated objects categorically in discourse. Handling of objects gradiently increasing in size was recorded in BSL narratives, in English narratives via co-speech gesture and pantomime; recordings were shown to another group of judges who matched handling productions with the objects. All participants reliably associated smaller objects with smaller apertures and larger objects with larger apertures; however, in BSL and co-speech gesture, handshapes were not completely interpreted as gradient variations in comparison with pantomime. When gestures become more strategic or unusual, e.g. pantomime, speakers introduce finer-grained encoding of object sizes. The discontinuous patterns suggest that HHs have underlying representations outside of the linguistic realm; their categorisation arises from visual-perceptual experience that is embodied through interaction with real life entities. In discourse, handling constructions are partly conventionalised and may become decomposable in BSL overtime but it is suggested here that general cognitive and perceptual factors contribute to the conventionalisation, rather than purely linguistic. Further, the findings from both experiments lend support to the argument that HH category structure is graded. This thesis contributes to debates about the relationship between visual perception and language processing and the complex interface between language and gesture and highlights the nature of language as a multimodal phenomenon

Tourism and identity of diasporic communities: a study of post-accession West Slavic migrants in the UK

This research focuses on tourism and identity formation of post-accession West Slavic migrants in the UK. Following the European Union enlargement in 2004, the communities of post-accession migrants became Britain’s increasingly growing populations. Moreover, with the scale of migration from Central Europe, West Slavic diaspora, consisting of Poles, Czechs and Slovaks became the single largest community of foreign nationals residing in the UK. Despite living in the age of migration, with increasing numbers as citizens in Westernized cultures, diasporic and ethnic communities have attracted only trivial attention of the tourism field. Particularly, the portrayal of Britain’s post-accession migrants within the tourism context remains overlooked. This study has adopted interpretivist ethnographic research strategy. Semi-structures in-depth interviews were conducted with 27 West Slavic migrants (12 Poles, 9 Slovaks and 6 Czechs) living in the UK. Data were coded and the themes and sub-themes arising, assisted development of the tourism, migration and cultural model of diasporic identity. This research provides a valuable contribution to the understanding of tourism and identity formation of diasporic communities. The primary research reveals that West Slavic migrants in the UK, similar to Britain’s Afro-Caribbean, South-Asian and Irish diasporas take preferential journeys to their ancestral homelands. Migrant’s ethnic roots and origins impact on their tourism motivation and travel behaviour. Although for some post-accession West Slavic migrants the return visit to homeland was a reminder of migrants’ pasts, this research proposes that most trips to homeland were not related to discovering roots or negotiating identity. This study suggests that the main purpose of homeland tourism is to maintain migrants’ transnational existences and regular social and familial networks and contracts with friends and families across borders. This research demonstrates that post-accession West Slavic migrants travel to their homelands more regularly than other displaced diasporas. These travel patterns were facilitated by the closer proximity to migrants’ homelands, freedom of movement within the EU and the recent development in transportation with availability of cheap flights in Europe. Although tourism plays a role in shaping identities of post-accession West Slavic communities in the UK, the research findings suggest that this role is less influential as demonstrated in similar past studies, especially those researching tourism motivation of Afro-Caribbean or South Asian diasporic communities. Therefore, the study concludes that post-accession West Slavic migrants are correctly referred to as modern transnational migrants, rather than displaced diaspora

Liquid Biopsies in Multiple Myeloma

Multiple myeloma is the second most common hematological malignancy. It is a heterogeneous disease characterized by focal lesions of malignant plasma cells in the bone marrow. Since bone marrow biopsy is a single-site procedure, its potential is limited in discovering the many clones present in each patient. Thus, a new approach, liquid biopsy, seems to be more relevant in today’s world. Liquid biopsy can analyze circulating tumor cells or various circulating molecules (cell-free DNA, microRNA, long non-coding RNA and many others) that originated from the various tumor sites and thus will represent many different subclones. This review summarized current situation in research of liquid biopsies in multiple myeloma

Comparing Semantic Fluency in American Sign Language and English

Published: 04 May 2018This study investigated the impact of language modality and age of acquisition on semantic fluency in American Sign Language (ASL) and English. Experiment 1 compared semantic fluency performance (e.g., name as many animals as possible in one minute) for deaf native and early ASL signers and hearing monolingual English speakers. The results showed similar fluency scores in both modalities when fingerspelled responses were included for ASL. Experiment 2 compared ASL and English fluency scores in hearing native and late ASL-English bilinguals. Semantic fluency scores were higher in English (the dominant language) than ASL (the non-dominant language), regardless of age of ASL acquisition. Fingerspelling was relatively common in all groups of signers and was used primarily for low-frequency items. We conclude that semantic fluency is sensitive to language dominance and that performance can be compared across the spoken and signed modality, but fingerspelled responses should be included in ASL fluency scores.This work was supported by National Institutes of Health [HD047736 to K.E. and SDSU]

An Interactive Visual Database for American Sign Language Reveals How Signs are Organized in the Mind

We are four researchers who study psycholinguistics, linguistics, neuroscience and deaf education. Our team of deaf and hearing scientists worked with a group of software engineers to create the ASL-LEX database that anyone can use for free. We cataloged information on nearly 3,000 signs and built a visual, searchable and interactive database that allows scientists and linguists to work with ASL in entirely new ways