Karen Emmorey | |
---|---|
Occupation | Distinguished Professor |
Awards | Distinguished Career Award from the Society of the Neurobiology of Language (2020) |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of California, Los Angeles |
Academic work | |
Institutions | San Diego State University |
Karen Denise Emmorey is a linguist and cognitive neuroscientist known for her research on the neuroscience of sign language [1] and what sign languages reveal about the brain and human languages more generally. Emmorey holds the position of Distinguished Professor in the School of Speech,Language,and Hearing Sciences at San Diego State University,where she directs the Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience and the Center for Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience. [2]
Emmorey received the 2020 Distinguished Career Award from the Society for the Neurobiology of Language. [3]
She was appointed the Albert W. Johnson Research Lecturer for 2013,San Diego State University's highest research honor. [4]
Emmorey is a Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America [5] and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. [6] [7]
Emmorey completed a B.A. in psychology and linguistics at the University of California,Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1982. She continued her education at UCLA,receiving her Ph.D. in Linguistics in 1987. [2] Her dissertation titled Morphological Structure and Parsing in the Lexicon was supervised by Victoria Fromkin. [8] Emmorey worked with Ursula Belugi as a post doctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies [9] from 1987 to 1988. Emmorey remained at the Salk Institute conducting research and serving as the Associate Director of the Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience from 2002 to 2005. [10] [2] Her research during this time focused on the use of physical space in sign language,supported by funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). [11] Her work has deepened the understanding of language universals and how properties of language vary across auditory-vocal or visual-manual modalities. [12]
Emmorey has been a member of faculty of San Diego State University since 2005. [13] She has received grants from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) [14] [15] and the NSF [16] [17] to support work on sign language and bilingualism,including a NSF collaborative research grant to study the semantic organization of American Sign Language. [18] She is the author and editor of several books and numerous articles in psychology,linguistics,neuroscience and related fields.
Emmorey was an associate editor of the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education from 2001 to 2017,and associate editor of Language from 2013 to 2016. She has served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals,including Sign Language Studies ,Sign Language &Linguistics,and the Journal of Memory and Language .
Emmorey's research is broadly focused on the neurobiology of language. [19] [20] She studies language processing in the brain among those who use sign language and among those who are bilingual users of a sign language and an oral language. [21] Her research team has found similarities in how the brain processes language regardless of modality [22] while also uncovering differences in neural processing that arise from utilizing different modalities of language. [23] In one of her notable studies,Emmorey and her colleagues documented advantages in visual imagery among sign language users (both hearing and deaf individuals) in the context of detecting mirror image reversals [24] when compared to non-signers. In a study utilizing fMRI,Emmorey's team found similarities in how the brain processes symbolic gestures (pantomime and emblems) and spoken language,suggesting involvement of a left-lateralized cortical network in mapping symbolic gestures or spoken words onto conceptual representations. [25]
Emmorey's research has been integral to the study of bilingualism,especially as it focuses on multiple modalities of bilingualism. [26] She has conducted research on the controversial subject of whether bilinguals have advantages in executive functioning. [27] [28] Emmorey and her colleagues looked at possible cognitive advantages in those who are bilingual in multiple modalities (speaking and signing) and those who are bilingual in the same modality (speaking). [29] They found that bimodal bilinguals performed the same as monolinguals on a set of flanker tasks assessing inhibitory control,whereas unimodal bilinguals were faster than both monolinguals and bimodal bilinguals on the tasks. These findings suggested that the bilingual advantage may be found only in unimodal bilinguals,perhaps as a consequence of their switching between two or more languages in the same modality.
The 2002 book Language,Cognition,and the Brain:Insights from Sign Language Research by Karen Emmorey provides a broad overview and analysis of current work on language in the brain,especially with regard to research on American Sign Language,Nicaraguan Sign Language,and other signed languages. [30]
The collection Language,Gesture,and Space,edited by Karen Emmorey and Judith Reilly in 1995,addressed a number of issues related to the study of signed languages and gestures,including questions of the boundary between nonverbal communication and the grammar of natural language. [31]
Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language. In other words,it is how human beings gain the ability to be aware of language,to understand it,and to produce and use words and sentences to communicate.
Sign languages are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning,instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign languages are full-fledged natural languages with their own grammar and lexicon. Sign languages are not universal and are usually not mutually intelligible,although there are also similarities among different sign languages.
A contact sign language,or contact sign,is a variety or style of language that arises from contact between deaf individuals using a sign language and hearing individuals using an oral language. Contact languages also arise between different sign languages,although the term pidgin rather than contact sign is used to describe such phenomena.
Bilingualism,a subset of multilingualism,means having proficiency in two or more languages. A bilingual individual is traditionally defined as someone who understands and produces two or more languages on a regular basis. A bilingual individual's initial exposure to both languages may start in early childhood,e.g. before age 3,but exposure may also begin later in life,in monolingual or bilingual education. Equal proficiency in a bilingual individuals' languages is rarely seen as it typically varies by domain. For example,a bilingual individual may have greater proficiency for work-related terms in one language,and family-related terms in another language.
The three deaf-community sign languages indigenous to Vietnam are found in Ho Chi Minh City,Hanoi,and Haiphong. The HCMC and Hanoi languages especially have been influenced by the French Sign Language (LSF) once taught in schools,and have absorbed a large amount of LSF vocabulary.
Bimodal bilingualism is an individual or community's bilingual competency in at least one oral language and at least one sign language,which utilize two different modalities. An oral language consists of a vocal-aural modality versus a signed language which consists of a visual-spatial modality. A substantial number of bimodal bilinguals are children of deaf adults (CODA) or other hearing people who learn sign language for various reasons. Deaf people as a group have their own sign language(s) and culture that is referred to as Deaf,but invariably live within a larger hearing culture with its own oral language. Thus,"most deaf people are bilingual to some extent in [an oral] language in some form". In discussions of multilingualism in the United States,bimodal bilingualism and bimodal bilinguals have often not been mentioned or even considered. This is in part because American Sign Language,the predominant sign language used in the U.S.,only began to be acknowledged as a natural language in the 1960s. However,bimodal bilinguals share many of the same traits as traditional bilinguals,as well as differing in some interesting ways,due to the unique characteristics of the Deaf community. Bimodal bilinguals also experience similar neurological benefits as do unimodal bilinguals,with significantly increased grey matter in various brain areas and evidence of increased plasticity as well as neuroprotective advantages that can help slow or even prevent the onset of age-related cognitive diseases,such as Alzheimer's and dementia.
Michael Siegal,PhD,DSc was a developmental psychologist and cognitive scientist who was Marie Curie Chair in Psychology at the University of Trieste,Italy,and also a Professor of Psychology at the University of Sheffield,UK.
Laura-Ann Petitto is a cognitive neuroscientist and a developmental cognitive neuroscientist known for her research and scientific discoveries involving the language capacity of chimpanzees,the biological bases of language in humans,especially early language acquisition,early reading,and bilingualism,bilingual reading,and the bilingual brain. Significant scientific discoveries include the existence of linguistic babbling on the hands of deaf babies and the equivalent neural processing of signed and spoken languages in the human brain. She is recognized for her contributions to the creation of the new scientific discipline,called educational neuroscience. Petitto chaired a new undergraduate department at Dartmouth College,called "Educational Neuroscience and Human Development" (2002-2007),and was a Co-Principal Investigator in the National Science Foundation and Dartmouth's Science of Learning Center,called the "Center for Cognitive and Educational Neuroscience" (2004-2007). At Gallaudet University (2011–present),Petitto led a team in the creation of the first PhD in Educational Neuroscience program in the United States. Petitto is the Co-Principal Investigator as well as Science Director of the National Science Foundation and Gallaudet University’s Science of Learning Center,called the "Visual Language and Visual Learning Center (VL2)". Petitto is also founder and Scientific Director of the Brain and Language Laboratory for Neuroimaging (“BL2”) at Gallaudet University.
Ping Li is a Professor of Psychology,Linguistics,and Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania State University. He specializes in language acquisition,focusing on bilingual language processing in East Asian languages and connectionist modeling. Li received a B.A. in Chinese linguistics from Peking University in 1983,an M.A. in theoretical linguistics from Peking University,a Ph.D. in psycholinguistics from Leiden University and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in 1990,and completed post-doctoral fellowships at the Center for Research in Language at the University of California,San Diego and the McDonnell-Pew Center for Research in Cognitive Neuroscience in 1992. Li has been employed at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (1992–1996),the University of Richmond (1996–2006),and Pennsylvania State University (2008–present),and he has also served as a Visiting Associate Professor at Hong Kong University (2002–2003),an adjunct professor at the State Key Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning at Beijing Normal University (2000–present),as well as Program Director for the Perception,Action,and Cognition Program and the Cognitive Neuroscience Program at the National Science Foundation (2007–2009).
Ursula Bellugi was an American cognitive neuroscientist. She was a Distinguished Professor Emerita and director of the Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience at the Salk Institute in La Jolla,California. She is known for research on the neurological bases of American Sign Language and language representation in people with Williams Syndrome.
Neuroscience of multilingualism is the study of multilingualism within the field of neurology. These studies include the representation of different language systems in the brain,the effects of multilingualism on the brain's structural plasticity,aphasia in multilingual individuals,and bimodal bilinguals. Neurological studies of multilingualism are carried out with functional neuroimaging,electrophysiology,and through observation of people who have suffered brain damage.
In sign languages, the term classifier construction refers to a morphological system that can express events and states. They use handshape classifiers to represent movement,location,and shape. Classifiers differ from signs in their morphology,namely that signs consist of a single morpheme. Signs are composed of three meaningless phonological features:handshape,location,and movement. Classifiers,on the other hand,consist of many morphemes. Specifically,the handshape,location,and movement are all meaningful on their own. The handshape represents an entity and the hand's movement iconically represents the movement of that entity. The relative location of multiple entities can be represented iconically in two-handed constructions.
Sign language refers to any natural language which uses visual gestures produced by the hands and body language to express meaning. The brain's left side is the dominant side utilized for producing and understanding sign language,just as it is for speech. In 1861,Paul Broca studied patients with the ability to understand spoken languages but the inability to produce them. The damaged area was named Broca's area,and located in the left hemisphere’s inferior frontal gyrus. Soon after,in 1874,Carl Wernicke studied patients with the reverse deficits:patients could produce spoken language,but could not comprehend it. The damaged area was named Wernicke's area,and is located in the left hemisphere’s posterior superior temporal gyrus.
There are an unknown number of indigenous deaf sign languages in Laos,which may have historical connections with the languages indigenous to Vietnam and Thailand,though it is not known if they are related to each other. There is no single "Laotian Sign Language". Sign languages in use in Laos include French Sign Language,American Sign Language,Thai Sign Language,Lao Sign Language,and Home sign.
Language acquisition is a natural process in which infants and children develop proficiency in the first language or languages that they are exposed to. The process of language acquisition is varied among deaf children. Deaf children born to deaf parents are typically exposed to a sign language at birth and their language acquisition follows a typical developmental timeline. However,at least 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents who use a spoken language at home. Hearing loss prevents many deaf children from hearing spoken language to the degree necessary for language acquisition. For many deaf children,language acquisition is delayed until the time that they are exposed to a sign language or until they begin using amplification devices such as hearing aids or cochlear implants. Deaf children who experience delayed language acquisition,sometimes called language deprivation,are at risk for lower language and cognitive outcomes. However,profoundly deaf children who receive cochlear implants and auditory habilitation early in life often achieve expressive and receptive language skills within the norms of their hearing peers;age at implantation is strongly and positively correlated with speech recognition ability. Early access to language through signed language or technology have both been shown to prepare children who are deaf to achieve fluency in literacy skills.
Ted Supalla is a deaf linguist whose research centers on sign language in its developmental and global context,including studies of the grammatical structure and evolution of American Sign Language and other sign languages.
Language deprivation in deaf and hard-of-hearing children is a delay in language development that occurs when sufficient exposure to language,spoken or signed,is not provided in the first few years of a deaf or hard of hearing child's life,often called the critical or sensitive period. Early intervention,parental involvement,and other resources all work to prevent language deprivation. Children who experience limited access to language—spoken or signed—may not develop the necessary skills to successfully assimilate into the academic learning environment. There are various educational approaches for teaching deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Decisions about language instruction is dependent upon a number of factors including extent of hearing loss,availability of programs,and family dynamics.
Rachel I. Mayberry is a language scientist known for her research on the effects of age of acquisition on sign language acquisition among deaf individuals –research that has provided evidence for a critical period in first language acquisition. She is Professor of Linguistics at University of California,San Diego (UCSD) and director of the Multimodal Language Lab.
Aniruddh (Ani) D. Patel is a cognitive psychologist known for his research on music cognition and the cognitive neuroscience of music. He is Professor of Psychology at Tufts University,Massachusetts. From a background in evolutionary biology,his work includes empirical research,theoretical studies,brain imaging techniques,and acoustical analysis applied to areas such as cognitive musicology,parallel relationships between music and language,and evolutionary musicology. Patel received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2018 to support his work on the evolution of musical cognition.
Seana Coulson is a cognitive scientist known for her research on the neurobiology of language and studies of how meaning is constructed in human language,including experimental pragmatics,concepts,semantics,and metaphors. She is a professor in the Cognitive Science department at University of California,San Diego,where her Brain and Cognition Laboratory focuses on the cognitive neuroscience of language and reasoning.
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