Zed Sevcikova Sehyr
Biographic Data
| ID | 3592459 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Zed Sevcikova Sehyr |
| GIVEN NAMES | Zed Sevcikova |
| FAMILY NAME | Sehyr |
| SIGNATURE | SEHYR Z S |
| AFFILIATIONS | San Diego State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7912-5428 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 29 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Orthographic representations in American Sign Language fingerspelling
This study examined fingerspelling accuracy and error patterns in deaf American Sign Language (ASL) signers and written spelling in hearing English speakers to investigate how orthographic representations are shaped by phonological, visual, and motor encoding strategies. Deaf participants ( n = 39) completed a fingerspelling repetition task, while hearing participants ( n = 35) completed a written dictation task using the same word and pseudoword…
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…
Contribution of Lexical Quality and Sign Language Variables to Reading Comprehension
The lexical quality hypothesis proposes that the quality of phonological, orthographic, and semantic representations impacts reading comprehension. In Study 1, we evaluated the contributions of lexical quality to reading comprehension in 97 deaf and 98 hearing adults matched for reading ability. While phonological awareness was a strong predictor for hearing readers, for deaf readers, orthographic precision and semantic knowledge, not phonology, …
The ASL-LEX 2.0 Project: A Database of Lexical and Phonological Properties for 2,723 Signs in American Sign Language
ASL-LEX is a publicly available, large-scale lexical database for American Sign Language (ASL). We report on the expanded database (ASL-LEX 2.0) that contains 2,723 ASL signs. For each sign, ASL-LEX now includes a more detailed phonological description, phonological density and complexity measures, frequency ratings (from deaf signers), iconicity ratings (from hearing non-signers and deaf signers), transparency ("guessability") ratings (from non-…
A data-driven approach to the semantics of iconicity in American Sign Language and English
A growing body of research shows that both signed and spoken languages display regular patterns of iconicity in their vocabularies. We compared iconicity in the lexicons of American Sign Language (ASL) and English by combining previously collected ratings of ASL signs (Caselli, Sevcikova Sehyr, Cohen-Goldberg, & Emmorey, 2017) and English words (Winter, Perlman, Perry, & Lupyan, 2017) with the use of data-driven semantic vectors derived from Engl…
Cross-linguistic metaphor priming in ASL-English bilinguals: Effects of the Double Mapping Constraint
Meir’s (2010) Double Mapping Constraint (DMC) states the use of iconic signs in metaphors is restricted to signs that preserve the structural correspondence between the articulators and the concrete source domain and between the concrete and metaphorical domains. We investigated ASL signers’ comprehension of English metaphors whose translations complied with the DMC ( Communication collapsed during the meeting ) or violated the DMC ( The acid ate…
Comparing Semantic Fluency in American Sign Language and English
This study investigated the impact of language modality and age of acquisition on semantic fluency in American Sign Language (ASL) and English. Experiment 1 compared semantic fluency performance (e.g., name as many animals as possible in 1 min) for deaf native and early ASL signers and hearing monolingual English speakers. The results showed similar fluency scores in both modalities when fingerspelled responses were included for ASL. Experiment 2…
A theory-driven model of handshape similarity
Following the Articulatory Model of Handshape (Keane 2014), which mathematically defines handshapes on the basis of joint angles, we propose two methods for calculating phonetic similarity: a contour difference method, which assesses the amount of change between handshapes within a fingerspelled word, and a positional similarity method, which compares similarity between pairs of letters in the same position across two fingerspelled words. Both me…
Fingerspelled and Printed Words Are Recoded into a Speech-based Code in Short-term Memory
We conducted three immediate serial recall experiments that manipulated type of stimulus presentation (printed or fingerspelled words) and word similarity (speech-based or manual). Matched deaf American Sign Language signers and hearing non-signers participated (mean reading age = 14-15 years). Speech-based similarity effects were found for both stimulus types indicating that deaf signers recoded both printed and fingerspelled words into a speech…
Rethinking constructed action
We aim to demonstrate the importance of defining linguistic phenomena by using constructed action or CA (i.e. a stretch of discourse that represents one role or combination of roles depicting actions, utterances, thought, attitudes and/or feelings of one or more referents) as an example. The problem is that different assumptions about CA have led to some apparent contradictions about the nature and characteristics of this phenomenon. Based on obs…
Lexicalisation and de-lexicalisation processes in sign languages: Comparing depicting constructions and viewpoint gestures
In this paper, we compare so-called "classifier" constructions in signed languages (which we refer to as "depicting constructions") with comparable iconic gestures produced by non-signers. We show clear correspondences between entity constructions and observer viewpoint gestures on the one hand, and handling constructions and character viewpoint gestures on the other. Such correspondences help account for both lexicalisation and de-lexicalisation…
Lexicalisation and de-lexicalisation processes in sign languages: Comparing depicting constructions and viewpoint gestures
In this paper, we compare so-called "classifier" constructions in signed languages (which we refer to as "depicting constructions") with comparable iconic gestures produced by non-signers. We show clear correspondences between entity constructions and observer viewpoint gestures on the one hand, and handling constructions and character viewpoint gestures on the other. Such correspondences help account for both lexicalisation and de-lexicalisation…
Lexicalisation and de-lexicalisation processes in sign languages: Comparing depicting constructions and viewpoint gestures
In this paper, we compare so-called "classifier" constructions in signed languages (which we refer to as "depicting constructions") with comparable iconic gestures produced by non-signers. We show clear correspondences between entity constructions and observer viewpoint gestures on the one hand, and handling constructions and character viewpoint gestures on the other. Such correspondences help account for both lexicalisation and de-lexicalisation…
Rethinking constructed action
We aim to demonstrate the importance of defining linguistic phenomena by using constructed action or CA (i.e. a stretch of discourse that represents one role or combination of roles depicting actions, utterances, thought, attitudes and/or feelings of one or more referents) as an example. The problem is that different assumptions about CA have led to some apparent contradictions about the nature and characteristics of this phenomenon. Based on obs…
A theory-driven model of handshape similarity
Following the Articulatory Model of Handshape (Keane 2014), which mathematically defines handshapes on the basis of joint angles, we propose two methods for calculating phonetic similarity: a contour difference method, which assesses the amount of change between handshapes within a fingerspelled word, and a positional similarity method, which compares similarity between pairs of letters in the same position across two fingerspelled words. Both me…
Fingerspelled and Printed Words Are Recoded into a Speech-based Code in Short-term Memory
We conducted three immediate serial recall experiments that manipulated type of stimulus presentation (printed or fingerspelled words) and word similarity (speech-based or manual). Matched deaf American Sign Language signers and hearing non-signers participated (mean reading age = 14-15 years). Speech-based similarity effects were found for both stimulus types indicating that deaf signers recoded both printed and fingerspelled words into a speech…
Comparing Semantic Fluency in American Sign Language and English
This study investigated the impact of language modality and age of acquisition on semantic fluency in American Sign Language (ASL) and English. Experiment 1 compared semantic fluency performance (e.g., name as many animals as possible in 1 min) for deaf native and early ASL signers and hearing monolingual English speakers. The results showed similar fluency scores in both modalities when fingerspelled responses were included for ASL. Experiment 2…
A data-driven approach to the semantics of iconicity in American Sign Language and English
A growing body of research shows that both signed and spoken languages display regular patterns of iconicity in their vocabularies. We compared iconicity in the lexicons of American Sign Language (ASL) and English by combining previously collected ratings of ASL signs (Caselli, Sevcikova Sehyr, Cohen-Goldberg, & Emmorey, 2017) and English words (Winter, Perlman, Perry, & Lupyan, 2017) with the use of data-driven semantic vectors derived from Engl…
Cross-linguistic metaphor priming in ASL-English bilinguals: Effects of the Double Mapping Constraint
Meir’s (2010) Double Mapping Constraint (DMC) states the use of iconic signs in metaphors is restricted to signs that preserve the structural correspondence between the articulators and the concrete source domain and between the concrete and metaphorical domains. We investigated ASL signers’ comprehension of English metaphors whose translations complied with the DMC ( Communication collapsed during the meeting ) or violated the DMC ( The acid ate…
The ASL-LEX 2.0 Project: A Database of Lexical and Phonological Properties for 2,723 Signs in American Sign Language
ASL-LEX is a publicly available, large-scale lexical database for American Sign Language (ASL). We report on the expanded database (ASL-LEX 2.0) that contains 2,723 ASL signs. For each sign, ASL-LEX now includes a more detailed phonological description, phonological density and complexity measures, frequency ratings (from deaf signers), iconicity ratings (from hearing non-signers and deaf signers), transparency ("guessability") ratings (from non-…
Contribution of Lexical Quality and Sign Language Variables to Reading Comprehension
The lexical quality hypothesis proposes that the quality of phonological, orthographic, and semantic representations impacts reading comprehension. In Study 1, we evaluated the contributions of lexical quality to reading comprehension in 97 deaf and 98 hearing adults matched for reading ability. While phonological awareness was a strong predictor for hearing readers, for deaf readers, orthographic precision and semantic knowledge, not phonology, …
Orthographic representations in American Sign Language fingerspelling
This study examined fingerspelling accuracy and error patterns in deaf American Sign Language (ASL) signers and written spelling in hearing English speakers to investigate how orthographic representations are shaped by phonological, visual, and motor encoding strategies. Deaf participants ( n = 39) completed a fingerspelling repetition task, while hearing participants ( n = 35) completed a written dictation task using the same word and pseudoword…
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…
Hearing Impairment and Communication (11 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Linguistics (9 works) · Hand Gesture Recognition Systems (8 works) · Natural language processing (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Sign language (7 works) · Mathematics (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · American Sign Language (5 works)