Jennie Pyers
Biographic Data
| ID | 3531107 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jennie Pyers |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jennie |
| FAMILY NAME | Pyers |
| SIGNATURE | PYERS J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Wellesley College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7932-2912 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Avoiding unintended consequences: Science of reading policies may harm deaf children
Many U.S. policies inspired by the Science of Reading rest on two assumptions: (1) skilled reading always involves automatic mapping between written words and speech sounds, and (2) all children benefit from systematic instruction of phonological awareness and phonics. These assumptions are not wholly accurate, that they do not consider scientific evidence from deaf readers, and that policies based on these assumptions may be harmful to deaf chil…
Individual differences in L2 proficiency moderate the effect of L1 translation knowledge on L2 lexical retrieval
The effect of translation knowledge on bilingual lexical production is mixed, with some studies showing translation interference and others showing facilitation. We considered the roles of first-language (L1) translation knowledge and second-language (L2) proficiency in lexical retrieval, testing predictions of the competition for selection , frequency lag and activation boosting accounts. In experiment 1, 54 highly proficient Spanish–English bil…
Parent American Sign Language skills correlate with child–but not toddler–ASL vocabulary size
Most deaf children have hearing parents who do not know a sign language at birth, and are at risk of limited language input during early childhood. Studying these children as they learn a sign language has revealed that timing of first-language exposure critically shapes language outcomes. But the input deaf children receive in their first language is not only delayed, it is much more variable than most first language learners, as many learn thei…
The iconic motivation for the morphophonological distinction between noun–verb pairs in American Sign Language does not reflect common human construals of objects and actions
Across sign languages, nouns can be derived from verbs through morphophonological changes in movement by (1) movement reduplication and size reduction or (2) size reduction alone. We asked whether these cross-linguistic similarities arise from cognitive biases in how humans construe objects and actions. We tested nonsigners’ sensitivity to differences in noun–verb pairs in American Sign Language (ASL) by asking MTurk workers to match images of ac…
From Seed to System: The Emergence of Non-Manual Markers for Wh-Questions in Nicaraguan Sign Language
At a language's inception, what determines which elements are taken up to build a grammar? How is the initial raw material reshaped through intergenerational language learning? We approached this question by focusing on the emergence of non-manual wh-question markers in Nicaraguan Sign Language (LSN), a young sign language. We asked whether the seeds of non-manual markers originate in the facial gestures of the hearing Nicaraguan community, and w…
Lexical iconicity is differentially favored under transmission in a new sign language: The effect of type of iconicity
Observations that iconicity diminishes over time in sign languages ( Frishberg 1975 ) pose a puzzle: Why should something so evidently useful and functional decrease? Using an archival dataset of signs elicited over 15 years from 4 first-cohort and 4 third-cohort signers of an emerging sign language (Nicaraguan Sign Language), we investigated changes in pantomimic (body-to-body) and perceptual (body-to-object) iconicity. We make three key observa…
Indicating the body: Expression of body part terminology in American Sign Language
Complements to cognition: A longitudinal study of the relationship between complex syntax and false-belief-understanding
Indicating the body: Expression of body part terminology in American Sign Language
From Seed to System: The Emergence of Non-Manual Markers for Wh-Questions in Nicaraguan Sign Language
At a language's inception, what determines which elements are taken up to build a grammar? How is the initial raw material reshaped through intergenerational language learning? We approached this question by focusing on the emergence of non-manual wh-question markers in Nicaraguan Sign Language (LSN), a young sign language. We asked whether the seeds of non-manual markers originate in the facial gestures of the hearing Nicaraguan community, and w…
Complements to cognition: A longitudinal study of the relationship between complex syntax and false-belief-understanding
Indicating the body: Expression of body part terminology in American Sign Language
Lexical iconicity is differentially favored under transmission in a new sign language: The effect of type of iconicity
Observations that iconicity diminishes over time in sign languages ( Frishberg 1975 ) pose a puzzle: Why should something so evidently useful and functional decrease? Using an archival dataset of signs elicited over 15 years from 4 first-cohort and 4 third-cohort signers of an emerging sign language (Nicaraguan Sign Language), we investigated changes in pantomimic (body-to-body) and perceptual (body-to-object) iconicity. We make three key observa…
The iconic motivation for the morphophonological distinction between noun–verb pairs in American Sign Language does not reflect common human construals of objects and actions
Across sign languages, nouns can be derived from verbs through morphophonological changes in movement by (1) movement reduplication and size reduction or (2) size reduction alone. We asked whether these cross-linguistic similarities arise from cognitive biases in how humans construe objects and actions. We tested nonsigners’ sensitivity to differences in noun–verb pairs in American Sign Language (ASL) by asking MTurk workers to match images of ac…
From Seed to System: The Emergence of Non-Manual Markers for Wh-Questions in Nicaraguan Sign Language
At a language's inception, what determines which elements are taken up to build a grammar? How is the initial raw material reshaped through intergenerational language learning? We approached this question by focusing on the emergence of non-manual wh-question markers in Nicaraguan Sign Language (LSN), a young sign language. We asked whether the seeds of non-manual markers originate in the facial gestures of the hearing Nicaraguan community, and w…
Parent American Sign Language skills correlate with child–but not toddler–ASL vocabulary size
Most deaf children have hearing parents who do not know a sign language at birth, and are at risk of limited language input during early childhood. Studying these children as they learn a sign language has revealed that timing of first-language exposure critically shapes language outcomes. But the input deaf children receive in their first language is not only delayed, it is much more variable than most first language learners, as many learn thei…
Individual differences in L2 proficiency moderate the effect of L1 translation knowledge on L2 lexical retrieval
The effect of translation knowledge on bilingual lexical production is mixed, with some studies showing translation interference and others showing facilitation. We considered the roles of first-language (L1) translation knowledge and second-language (L2) proficiency in lexical retrieval, testing predictions of the competition for selection , frequency lag and activation boosting accounts. In experiment 1, 54 highly proficient Spanish–English bil…
Avoiding unintended consequences: Science of reading policies may harm deaf children
Many U.S. policies inspired by the Science of Reading rest on two assumptions: (1) skilled reading always involves automatic mapping between written words and speech sounds, and (2) all children benefit from systematic instruction of phonological awareness and phonics. These assumptions are not wholly accurate, that they do not consider scientific evidence from deaf readers, and that policies based on these assumptions may be harmful to deaf chil…
Linguistics (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Hearing Impairment and Communication (6 works) · American Sign Language (5 works) · Sign language (5 works) · Mathematics (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (3 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (3 works) · Philosophy (3 works)