English
 
Help Privacy Policy Disclaimer
  Advanced SearchBrowse

Item

ITEM ACTIONSEXPORT

Released

Journal Article

Iconic gestures serve as manual cognates in hearing second language learners of a sign language: An ERP study

MPS-Authors
/persons/resource/persons142

Ozyurek,  Asli
Research Associates, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;
Multimodal Language and Cognition, Radboud University Nijmegen, External Organizations;
Center for Language Studies, External Organizations;

/persons/resource/persons38000

Peeters,  David
Neurobiology of Language Department, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society, Nijmegen, NL;
Department of Communication and Cognition, Tilburg University ;

External Resource
No external resources are shared
Fulltext (restricted access)
There are currently no full texts shared for your IP range.
Supplementary Material (public)
There is no public supplementary material available
Citation

Ortega, G., Ozyurek, A., & Peeters, D. (2020). Iconic gestures serve as manual cognates in hearing second language learners of a sign language: An ERP study. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 46(3), 403-415. doi:10.1037/xlm0000729.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0003-72D7-A
Abstract
When learning a second spoken language, cognates, words overlapping in form and meaning with one’s native language, help breaking into the language one wishes to acquire. But what happens when the to-be-acquired second language is a sign language? We tested whether hearing nonsigners rely on their gestural repertoire at first exposure to a sign language. Participants saw iconic signs with high and low overlap with the form of iconic gestures while electrophysiological brain activity was recorded. Upon first exposure, signs with low overlap with gestures elicited enhanced positive amplitude in the P3a component compared to signs with high overlap. This effect disappeared after a training session. We conclude that nonsigners generate expectations about the form of iconic signs never seen before based on their implicit knowledge of gestures, even without having to produce them. Learners thus draw from any available semiotic resources when acquiring a second language, and not only from their linguistic experience