Deaf signers and serial recall in the visual modality: memory for signs, fingerspelling, and print.

Abstract

This study investigated serial recall by congenitally, profoundly deaf signers for visually specified linguistic information presented in their primary language, American Sign Language (ASL), and in printed or fingerspelled English. There were three main findings. First, differences in the serial-position curves across these conditions distinguished the changing-state stimuli from the static stimuli. These differences were a recency advantage and a primacy disadvantage for the ASL signs and fingerspelled English words, relative to the printed English words. Second, the deaf subjects, who were college students and graduates, used a sign-based code to recall ASL signs, but not to recall English words; this result suggests that well-educated deaf signers do not translate into their primary language when the information to be recalled is in English. Finally, mean recall of the deaf subjects for ordered lists of ASL signs and fingerspelled and printed English words was significantly less than that of hearing control subjects for the printed words; this difference may be explained by the particular efficacy of a speech-based code used by hearing individuals for retention of ordered linguistic information and by the relatively limited speech experience of congenitally, profoundly deaf individuals.