Neural responses to meaningless pseudosigns: evidence for sign-based phonetic processing in superior temporal cortex.

ABSTRACT: To identify neural regions that automatically respond to linguistically structured, but meaningless manual gestures, 14 deaf native users of American Sign Language (ASL) and 14 hearing non-signers passively viewed pseudosigns (possible but non-existent ASL signs) and non-iconic ASL signs, in addition to a fixation baseline. For the contrast between pseudosigns and baseline, greater activation was observed in left posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS), but not in left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 44/45), for deaf signers compared to hearing non-signers, based on VOI analyses. We hypothesize that left STS is more engaged for signers because this region becomes tuned to human body movements that conform the phonological constraints of sign language. For deaf signers, the contrast between pse

SUBMITTER: Emmorey K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3075318 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature