Switching cost and cognate facilitation between two signed languages
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19595963 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ralph Adam (0000-0002-1754-6312, Heriot-Watt University, corresponding author), Robert Adam (0000-0003-0053-7919, Heriot-Watt University, corresponding author), Jill P Morford (0000-0003-3806-3683, University of New Mexico) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-12 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Frontiers in Language Sciences (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2813-4605 • E-ISSN: 2813-4605 |
| Publisher | Frontiers Media SA (PUBLISHER • CH) |
| DOI | 10.3389/flang.2025.1722425 |
| OpenAlex | W7122702471 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 23 |
This study investigated language switching and cognate facilitation in deaf bilinguals fluent in two signed languages—Irish Sign Language (ISL) and British Sign Language (BSL). Ten participants, who were all deaf and were educated in ISL and later exposed to BSL, completed a picture-naming task requiring them to switch between the two languages based on visual cues. The study aimed to establish whether a switching cost—typically observed in unimodal spoken language bilingualism—also exists in unimodal signed language bilingualism, and whether language dominance and cognate status mediated this effect. Results confirmed a general switching cost: participants were slower to respond on switch trials than during a baseline block with no switching. Both language dominance and cognate status affected the switching cost, such that switching costs were greater in the dominant language, and non-cognates were significantly slowed by switching but cognates were not. Accuracy rates were high and did not vary significantly by switching condition or language. As the first investigation to provide evidence of a switching cost in deaf bilinguals who use two signed languages, this study provides an important foundation for future work exploring how language modality and language ecology shape the cognitive control systems underlying language switching
Code-switching · Cognate · Cognition · Dominance (genetics) · Facilitation · Neuroscience of multilingualism · Sign language · Task switching · Hand Gesture Recognition Systems · Hearing Impairment and Communication · Hemispheric Asymmetry in Neuroscience
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Adaptations in communication made by deaf signers to different audience types
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |