Neural mechanisms of event visibility in sign languages

Abstract

ABSTRACT In unrelated sign languages event structure is reflected in the dynamic form of verbs, and hearing non-signers are known to be able to recognise these visual event structures. This study assessed the time course of neural processing mechanisms in non-signers to examine the pathways for incorporation of physical-perceptual motion features into the linguistic system. In an EEG study, hearing non-signers classified telic/atelic verb signs (two-choice lexical decision task). The ERP effects reflect differences in perceptual processing of verb types (early anterior ERP effects) and integration of perceptual and linguistic processing required by the task (later posterior ERP effects). Non-signers appear to segment signed input into discrete events as they try to map the sign to a linguistic concept. This might indicate the potential pathway for co-optation of perceptual features into the linguistic structure of sign languages.