title: Looking for an explanation for the low sign span. Is order involved?
abstract: Although signed and speech-based languages have a similar internal organization of verbal short-term memory, sign span is lower than word span. We investigated whether this is due to the fact that signs are not suited for serial recall, as proposed by Bavelier, Newport, Hall, Supalla, and Boutla (2008. Ordered short-term memory differs in signers and speakers: Implications for models of short-term memory. Cognition, 107, 433-459). We administered a serial recall task with stimuli in Italian Sign Language to 12 deaf people, and we compared their performance with that of twelve age-, gender-, and education-matched hearing participants who performed the task in Italian. The results do not offer evidence for the hypothesis that serial order per se is a detrimental factor for deaf participants. An alternative explanation for the lower sign span based on signs being phonologically heavier than words is considered.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università di Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gozzi
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Geraci
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cecchetto
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Perugini
authors.forename: Costanza
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Papagno
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition; D003638:Deafness / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D012691:Serial Learning; D012813:Sign Language