1. Regional Cerebral Blood Flow During Sign Language Perception Sarah, Christine & Annette

3. Overview I.Introduction II.Aim of Study III.Subjects IV.Method V.Conclusion

4. Introduction Experiment Cerebral activation during sign language perception of hearing and deaf persons with deaf parents Result Deaf persons depend more on spatial information

5. Aim of study Signed vs. Spoken Language Similarities: Activation of same cerebral areas Differences: Involvement of right hemisphere (deaf people)?

6. Subjects Deaf group 6 persons Deaf aprents Monolingual (Swedish sign language) Hearing group 9 persons Deaf parents Bilingual (Swedish signed and spoken language)

7. Method Course of experiment Translated Swedish novel presented by deaf man signing on video Subjects asked to retell the story Comparison of regional cerebral blood flow: Deaf vs. hearing group

8. Conclusion Results Hearing group: lower mean flow level during sign language Deaf group: same mean flow level during both conditions Overall outcome Deaf children of deaf parents: Involvement of right hemisphere right hemisphere Not early learning of sign language but deafness leads to right hemisphere activation to right hemisphere activation