I looked through my newsletter archives for some related info. I found this:
"A team at the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University
said their discovery of brain processing sign language as speech was
surprising."
I have no reference for that but it might be interesting to connect that with
the
SignWriting research.
Bill
Valerie Sutton wrote:
> SignWriting List
> April 5, 2001
>
> ....A message for Themis Karaminis, Antonio Carlos da Rocha Costa,
> Karen Emmorey, and Judy Kegl...
>
> Thank you for your message below, Themis....
>
> Regarding the subject of the correspondence of SW to cognitive
> aspects of sign language processing in the brain, such as the
> visual-perception, understanding, production and acquisition
> mechanisms which you mention below....
>
> Just wanted you to know that about a year ago, Dr. Karen Emmorey at
> Salk Institute asked me about a possible brain-scan of a Deaf person
> who is fluent in SignWriting...for a similar topic ...to see how the
> brain functions when reading SignWriting etc...
>
> Judy Kegl and Karen then started discussing the possibility of such a
> brain-scan or MRI...I don't believe the brain-scan ever took
> place.... but I wanted you to know about this, since others have
> expressed interest in brain activity and SignWriting ;-)
>
> Val
>
>
> ---------------------------------
>
> Themis Karaminis wrote:
>
> >> Could you state briefly what do you understand by "NLP with a cognitive
> >> view"?
> >
> >With the (unsuccessful) term "cognitive view to NLP", I refer
> >mostly to connectionist modelling and also other approaches that
> >incorporate evidence from cognitive science about language
> >organization in the brain for producing models for language
> >processing.
> >
> >
> >>What cognitive aspects of language processes would say that depend on
> >> the particular form that has been chosen for writing a language on paper
> > (or
> >> a computer screen)?>
> >
> > On the one hand, SignWriting is a writing system, i.e. a set of
> >symbols for encoding signs . Therefore, for any evaluation or
> >comparison to other writing systems or transcription systems,
> >what would matter are the units for which symbols have been
> >selected and not the symbols themselves. Moreover,when considering
> >using SW input for NLP the basic issue would be the computer
> >readability of the .sgn format (if the computer can read the
> >phonological elements of the sign). Thus, a cognitively plausible
> >model for sign language processing could not be based on the
> >form of the input.
> > On the other hand, SignWriting is easy to learn and use mostly
> >because it is iconographic. This fact implies a possible
> >correspondence of SW to cognitive aspects of sign language processing in
> >the brain, such as the visual-perception, understanding, production and
> >acquisition mechanisms. Could a computational model exploit
> >SignWriter's iconicity to get closer to cognition-based aspects of sign
> >language realization? How? For example could the extraction of the
> >phonological features from the .sgn format be based on a model for sign
> >visual perception process?
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