The study of signed languages provides a unique tool for investigating the functional neural organization of language in the human brain. We use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), structural MRI, and event-related potentials (ERPs) to address the following questions:
- Is the deaf, signing brain different from the hearing, speaking brain?
- What is the nature of the bimodal bilingual brain?
- Are there differences in brain anatomy between signers and speakers?
- How is sign perception different from action perception?
- How is language about space and motion processed by the brain?
- Does using a signed language impact the neural organization for non-linguistic visual processing?
Funding
This research is supported by the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01 DC101977 and R01 DC014246) and by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01 HD047736).
Recent Publications
- Emmorey, K., Winsler, K., Midgley, K.J., Grainger, J., & Holcomb, P.J. (2020). Neurophysiological correlates of frequency, concreteness, and iconicity in American Sign Language. Neurobiology of Language, 1(2), 249-267. PMCID: PMC pending https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/nol_a_00012
- McGarry, M., Mott, M., Midgley, K.J., Holcomb, P.J., & Emmorey, K. (2020). Picture-naming in American Sign Language: an electrophysiological study of the effects of iconicity and structured alignment. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. PMCID: PMC pending https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2020.1804601
- MacSweeney, M., & Emmorey, K. (2020). The neurobiology of sign language processing. In D. Poeppel, G. Mangun, and M. Gazzaniga (Eds.), The Cognitive Neurosciences VI, pp. 851–858, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Click to request PDF
- Mott, M., Midgley, K.J., Holcomb, P.J., & Emmorey, K. (2020). Cross-modal translation priming and iconicity effects in deaf signers and hearing learners of American Sign Language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1-13. PMCID: PMC pending https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728919000889
- Sehyr, Z.S., Midgley, K. J., Holcomb, P.J., Emmorey, K., Plaut, D. C., & Behrmann, M. (2020). Unique N170 asymmetries to visual words and faces reflect experience-specific adaptation in adult deaf ASL signers. Neuropsychologia, 141, 107414. PMCID: PMC7192317 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107414
- Vinson, D., Fox, N., Devlin, J.T., Emmorey, K., & Vigliocco, G. (2019). Transcranial magnetic stimulation during British Sign Language production reveals monitoring of discrete linguistic units in left superior parietal lobule. Unpublished Manuscript. https://doi.org/10.1101/679340
- Lee, B., Meade, G., Midgley, K. J., Holcomb, P.J., & Emmorey, K. (2019). ERP evidence for co-activation of English words during recognition of American Sign Language signs. Brain Sciences, 9, 148.
- Meade, G., Lee, B., Midgley, K.J., Holcomb, P.J., & Emmorey, K. (2018). Phonological and semantic priming in American Sign Language: N300 and N400 effects. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 33(9), 1092-1106.
- Blanco-Elorrieta, E., Kastner, I., Emmorey, K., & Pylkkänen, L. (2018). Shared neural correlates for building phrases in signed and spoken language. Scientific Reports, 8:5492.
- Liu, L., Yan, X., Liu, J., Xia, M., Lu, C., Emmorey, K., Chu, M., & Ding, G. (2017). Graph theoretical analysis of functional network for comprehension of sign language. Brain research, 1671, 55-66. Click to request PDF
Recent Presentations
- Emmorey, K.(2019) Neural and behavioral consequences of lexical iconicity in American Sign Language. Invited speaker for the meeting of Sign Language Linguistics Society (TISLR13). September, Hamburg, Germany.
- Emmorey, K. (2019). Neural effects of iconicity in sign language. Invited presentation at Neuroscience of Language Conference, April, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
- Lee, B., Midgley, K.J., Holcomb, P.J., Emmorey, K., & Meade, G. (2019). ERP evidence for phonological priming in American Sign Language in a semantic task. Poster presented at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, March, San Francisco. (pdf)
- McCullough, S., Brozdowski, C., & Emmorey, K. (2019). Neural correlates for comprehending perspective-independent and perspective-dependent spatial expressions in ASL and English. Poster presented at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, March, San Francisco. (pdf)
- Emmorey, K. (2018). The neurobiology of language: Perspectives from sign language. Keynote speaker at the National Cognitive Science Conference, April, San Diego, CA.
- Emmorey, K. (2018). The neurobiology of language: Perspectives from sign language research. Plenary speaker at the Linguistic Society of America meeting, January, Salt Lake City, Utah.
- Massa, N., Meade, G., Lee, B., Midgley, K.J., Holcomb, P.J., & Emmorey, K. (2018). Single-parameter phonological priming in American Sign Language: An ERP study. Poster presented at the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, August, Québec City, Canada. (pdf)
- Ries, S., Mickelsen, S., Nadalet, L., Mott, M., Midgley, K. J., Holcomb, P.J., & Emmorey, K. (2018). Pre-output language monitoring in sign production. Poster presented at the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, August, Québec City, Canada. (pdf)
- Sevcikova Sehyr, Z., Renna, J., Midgley, K., Emmorey, K., & Holcomb, P. (2018). Orthographic priming by fingerspelled and printed letters. Poster presented at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Meeting, March, Boston, MA. (pdf)
- Sevcikova Sehyr, Z., Renna, J., Osmond, S., Midgley, K.J., Holcomb, P.J. & Emmorey, K. (2018). Priming effects between fingerspelled fonts and printed letters. Poster presented at the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, August, Québec City, Canada.