Browsing by Author "Karadöller, D. Z."

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Open Access
Late sign language exposure does not modulate the relation between spatial language and spatial memory in deaf children and adults
(Springer, 2023-04) Karadöller, D. Z.; Sümer, B.; Ünal, Ercenur; Özyürek, A.; Psychology; ÜNAL, Ercenur
Prior work with hearing children acquiring a spoken language as their first language shows that spatial language and cognition are related systems and spatial language use predicts spatial memory. Here, we further investigate the extent of this relationship in signing deaf children and adults and ask if late sign language exposure, as well as the frequency and the type of spatial language use that might be affected by late exposure, modulate subsequent memory for spatial relations. To do so, we compared spatial language and memory of 8-year-old late-signing children (after 2 years of exposure to a sign language at the school for the deaf) and late-signing adults to their native-signing counterparts. We elicited picture descriptions of Left-Right relations in Turkish Sign Language (Türk İşaret Dili) and measured the subsequent recognition memory accuracy of the described pictures. Results showed that late-signing adults and children were similar to their native-signing counterparts in how often they encoded the spatial relation. However, late-signing adults but not children differed from their native-signing counterparts in the type of spatial language they used. However, neither late sign language exposure nor the frequency and type of spatial language use modulated spatial memory accuracy. Therefore, even though late language exposure seems to influence the type of spatial language use, this does not predict subsequent memory for spatial relations. We discuss the implications of these findings based on the theories concerning the correspondence between spatial language and cognition as related or rather independent systems.
Open Access
Spatial language use predicts spatial memory of children: evidence from sign, speech, and speech-plus-gesture
(The Cognitive Science Society, 2021) Karadöller, D. Z.; Sümer, B.; Ünal, Ercenur; Özyürek, A.; Psychology; ÜNAL, Ercenur
There is a strong relation between children’s exposure to spatial terms and their later memory accuracy. In the current study, we tested whether the production of spatial terms by children themselves predicts memory accuracy and whether and how language modality of these encodings modulates memory accuracy differently. Hearing child speakers of Turkish and deaf child signers of Turkish Sign Language described pictures of objects in various spatial relations to each other and later tested for their memory accuracy of these pictures in a surprise memory task. We found that having described the spatial relation between the objects predicted better memory accuracy. However, the modality of these descriptions in sign, speech, or speech-plus-gesture did not reveal differences in memory accuracy. We discuss the implications of these findings for the relation between spatial language, memory, and the modality of encoding.