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Abstract:
The literature reports that regions of the superior temporal
sulcus (STS) are active in response to the perception of both
biological motion and native spoken language. In the past, we
showed common STS activation for spoken (lipread) and fingerspelled
words in deaf perceivers. However, both stimulus types were
simultaneously language and biological motion for these perceivers.
To distinguish between these two stimulus attributes, the present
study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate
whether fingerspelling activates the same areas of STS in normal
hearing perceivers naïve to fingerspelling, but skilled in
lipreading. Young adults were imaged with 10-mm thick slices in the
coronal plane at 1.5T. In Experiment 1, a sequence of silently
mouthed monosyllabic words was contrasted with a sequence of
colored shapes overlayed on the motionless face of the talker. In
Experiment 2, a sequence of fingerspelled monosyllabic words was
contrasted with a sequence of colored shapes overlayed on the
motionless hand of the signer. For lipreading, activation was
obtained in the STS. However, for fingerspelling, activation was
minimal or absent in the STS. These results suggest that it is the
linguistic attributes of fingerspelling, rather than biological
motion, that primarily drive STS activity with fingerspelling in
deaf adults. (NIH/NIDCD DC03633)
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