Working Memory of Deaf Signers

Lee, Chong Min; Kim, Young Wook

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2003;8(3): 209-227.

Chong Min Lee^` , and Young Wook Kim^`

이종민(Chong Min Lee)| 김영욱(Young Wook Kim)

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to investigate how different the results are of the memory method of sign language in phonologically similar tasks of articulatory suppression task and digit span task among the three groups of the deaf, the deaf oral, and hearing(sign language interpreters) through immediate serial recall test. To investigate how those in each group use sign language based on code, I divided them into deaf, deaf oral, hearing adults and measured phonological similarity effects, articulatory suppression effects, digit span effects using lists of Korean sign language stimuli. The results were as follows. As for the phonological similarity effect, there were significant differences between the deaf adults, the oral deaf adults, and the hearing interpreters. All three groups were worse in recalling the phonologically similar lists than the dissimilar lists. As for the articulatory suppression effect, there were also significant differences between the three groups. The oral deaf group and the normally hearing group did better in recalling the lists in the suppressed condition than in the unsuppressed condition. However, the deaf group did worse in recalling in the suppressed condition than in the un suppressed condition. The span of working memory was measured first in the forward recall condition and then in the backward recall condition. There were also significant differences between the three groups in the digit recall. We can conclude that the deaf subjects who participated in this study differ from both the oral deaf and the hearing subjects in the way they remember signs. Furthermore, it shows that the deaf signers would form a visual-linguistic code for the signs while the hearing and the oral deaf subjects would undergo visual-pictorial processes.