Abstract
Previous work suggests that the brain has a limited ability to process multiple visual stimuli during divided attention: for example, people can recognize only one word at a time (White, Palmer, & Boynton, Psych Science 2018). Here, we examine whether American Sign Language (ASL) experience affects divided attention for stimuli: do signers & non-signers differ in their ability to process two signs at once? In a probe recognition paradigm, participants were presented with two letter signs, one or both of which were pre-cued as relevant (single- and dual-task conditions, respectively), and then responded whether a probe sign matched the cued sign(s). The dual-task deficit is the difference in performance between the single- and dual-task conditions and measures the cost of dividing attention. Preliminary data show that hearing non-signers and signers had a similar dual-task deficit (11.8% ± 2.2%, n = 5 vs. 11.4% ± 1.5%, n = 6), with no significant difference between the groups (t(7.27) = 0.18, p = 0.86). The magnitude of these divided attention effects is consistent with processing limits observed for object judgments (e.g. Popovkina, Palmer, Moore, & Boynton, JoV 2021). Thus, these preliminary results suggest that the attentional demands of ASL sign processing are similar in signers and non-signers.
Funding: Funding: Mary Gates Endowment, Arc of Washington Trust Fund, University of Washington, Special Diversity Fellowship, Bolles Dissertation Funds