ABSTRACT
Online comprehension of sign language involves many visuospatial processes, such as recognition of hand configuration, motion discrimination, identification of facial expressions, and recognition of linguistically relevant spatial contrasts. Production of sign language also involves visuospatial processes linked to motor processes, for example, production of distinct motion patterns, memory for spatial locations, and integration of mental images with signing space. Interpreting movement is critical to online comprehension of sign language. Deaf signers were significantly faster than hearing nonsigners in detecting the direction of motion of the square. However, this enhanced detec-tion ability appears to be an effect of auditory deprivation rather than an effect of the use of sign language because Deaf native signers were also much faster than hearing native signers, who performed similarly to hearing nonsigners. In particular, movement repetition and cyclicity were much more salient for the Deaf signers, and repetition and cyclicity are both phonologically distinctive in ASL.
