Neuroelectrical and behavioral correlates of constructed action recognition in Finnish Sign language

Abstract

Language can be processed with varying levels of attentional involvement; consequently, the interplay between the language and attentional systems in the brain has been extensively studied in spoken languages. However, in signed languages (SLs), this interplay is less well understood. Here, we use Constructed Action (CA) – a meaning-making strategy based on enactment – as a window into the attentional mechanisms recruited in signed language comprehension. We explored the attentional processing of CA by identifying the sequence of processes involved and in which stage CA and its types might be processed differently. Finally, we investigated the associations between the brain mechanisms of CA detection and their behavioral manifestations, as well as with components of attention of the Attention Network Test (ANT). We also measured the electrophysiological correlates of performance on an oddball CA detection task in deaf and hearing L1 signers. We found that processes involved in all signers’ active detection of CA involved automatic (indexed by N1 and P2) and attention-based processes (indexed by N2s and P3s). N2 posterior bilateral were also more negative for tokens of overt CA than for PT-only signs, while P3a was more positive for all types of CA than for PT. No significant results were found regarding the ANT. We conclude that specific attentional involvement in CA detection is triggered by the increasing enacting elements and saliency involved in CA. This study yielded new insights into the functional interaction between the neural mechanisms underlying attentional control and those mediating CA processing in SL.