Age of acquisition effects differ across linguistic domains in sign language: EEG evidence.

We examined neural responses of a group of Deaf signers who received access to signed input at varying ages to three linguistic phenomena at the levels of classifier signs, syntactic structure, and information structure. The amplitude of the N400 response to the marked word order condition negatively correlated with the age of acquisition for syntax and information structure, indicating increased cognitive load in these conditions. Additionally, the combination of behavioral and neural data suggested that late learners preferentially relied on classifiers over word order for meaning extraction. This suggests that late acquisition of sign language significantly increases cognitive load during analysis of syntax and information structure, but not word-level meaning. PMID: 31698097 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Brain and Language - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Brain Lang Source Type: research