DCAL PhD Projects

Previous research has looked at how sign language and gesture are processed in the brain (e.g. Campbell et al. 2007; Newman et al. 2015) but most studies have assumed that signers don't gesture. This project looks instead at how different semiotic structures are processed. How does the brain process conventional description (e.g. words, signs & mouthing), depiction (e.g. depicting/classifier signs, constructed action, improvised iconic gestures with speech) and indication (e.g. pointing), as outlined in Ferrara & Hodge 2018? How are each of these types of semiotic constructions treated by the brain – both in deaf signers and hearing non-signers?

This project requires knowledge of British Sign Language (BSL) to at least level 2 or equivalent.

Funding will be through a competitive process via the Department of Linguistics, UCL. Deadlines for early expression of interest (recommended) are 15th November 2023. Potential candidates should contact Prof Kearsy Cormier (k.cormier@ucl.ac.uk) with a copy of their CV and a one-page statement of their research interests and relevance for this project. More information can be found here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pals/study/pals-phd-and-doctorate-programmes/mphilphd-linguistics

We particularly encourage applications from deaf and hard-of-hearing students and/or students from minority ethnic groups who are currently under-represented at UCL and DCAL.

References

• Ferrara, L., & Hodge, G. (2018). Language as description, indication, and depiction. Frontiers in Psychology, 9:716. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00716
• Campbell, R., MacSweeney, M., & Waters, D. (2007). Sign Language and the Brain: A Review. The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 13(1), 3-20. https://doi.org/10.1093/deafed/enm035
• Newman, A. J., Supalla, T., Fernandez, N., Newport, E. L., & Bavelier, D. (2015). Neural systems supporting linguistic structure, linguistic experience, and symbolic communication in sign language and gesture. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(37), 11684-11689. https://doi.org/doi:10.1073/pnas.1510527112

Sign languages used by deaf communities exhibit a range of type of mouth patterns – some that are based on the surrounding spoken language(s), and some that are not. What types of mouth patterns occur in spontaneous British Sign Language (BSL) data? This project would study mouth patterns within the BSL Corpus (Schembri et al. 2014). There are several possible specific project topics – e.g. which mouth gestures are used in BSL, which English mouthings go with which BSL signs, reductions in English mouthings (cf. Proctor & Cormier 2022), temporal alignment of mouth patterns with BSL signs, and/or co-occurrence of mouthing with fingerspelling (cf. Brown & Cormier 2017). This work is important for BSL teachers, learners, interpreters, and also for machine learning. There are some initial mouthing annotations available already.

This project requires knowledge of British Sign Language (BSL) to at least level 2 or equivalent.

Funding will be through a competitive process via the Department of Linguistics, UCL. Deadlines for early expression of interest (recommended) are 15th November 2023. Potential candidates should contact Prof Kearsy Cormier (k.cormier@ucl.ac.uk) with a copy of their CV and a one-page statement of their research interests and relevance for this project. More information can be found here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pals/study/pals-phd-and-doctorate-programmes/mphilphd-linguistics

We particularly encourage applications from deaf and hard-of-hearing students and/or students from minority ethnic groups who are currently under-represented at UCL and DCAL.

References

• Brown, M., & Cormier, K. (2017). Sociolinguistic variation in the nativisation of BSL fingerspelling. Open Linguistics, 3(1), 115-144. 
• Proctor, H., & Cormier, K. (2022). Sociolinguistic Variation in Mouthings in British Sign Language (BSL): A Corpus-Based Study. Language and Speech, 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1177/00238309221107002
• Schembri, A., Fenlon, J., Rentelis, R., & Cormier, K. (2014). British Sign Language Corpus Project: A corpus of digital video data and annotations of British Sign Language 2008-2014 (Second Edition). University College London. http://www.bslcorpusproject.org. http://www.bslcorpusproject.org

The British Sign Language (BSL) Corpus was filmed 2008-2011 (see Schembri et al., 2014); the deaf community has changed since then. There are many possible projects involving documenting structure, use, variation and/or change in BSL, especially used by:

• UK regions other than London, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, Belfast
• ethnic minority communities in any UK region
• deaf children (various ages/family backgrounds) in any UK region

These would require new data to be collected from deaf adults and/or children, which could use corpus methods for sampling/representation (Fenlon et al. 2015).

This project requires a high level of fluency in British Sign Language (BSL) and in-depth experience in/with the British deaf community.

Funding will be through a competitive process via the Department of Linguistics, UCL. Deadlines for early expression of interest (recommended) are 15th November 2023. Potential candidates should contact Prof Kearsy Cormier (k.cormier@ucl.ac.uk) with a copy of their CV and a one-page statement of their research interests and relevance for this project. More information can be found here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pals/study/pals-phd-and-doctorate-programmes/mphilphd-linguistics

We particularly encourage applications from deaf and hard-of-hearing students and/or students from minority ethnic groups who are currently under-represented at UCL and DCAL.

References

• Fenlon, J., Schembri, A., Johnston, T., & Cormier, K. (2015). Documentary and corpus approaches to sign language research. In E. Orfanidou, B. Woll, & G. Morgan (Eds.), The Blackwell guide to research methods in sign language studies (pp. 156-172). Blackwell. 
• Schembri, A., Fenlon, J., Rentelis, R., Reynolds, S., & Cormier, K. (2013). Building the British Sign Language Corpus. Language Documentation and Conservation, 7, 136-154. https://doi.org/http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4592
• Schembri, A., Fenlon, J., Rentelis, R., & Cormier, K. (2014). British Sign Language Corpus Project: A corpus of digital video data and annotations of British Sign Language 2008-2014 (Second Edition). University College London. http://www.bslcorpusproject.org. http://www.bslcorpusproject.org

Supervisors: Velia Cardin and Mairéad MacSweeney

Applications are invited for a PhD student to work on neural representations of audio-visual speech in adults with age-related hearing loss. The deadline for the internal funding competition will be in early January 2024, starting the PhD studies in September 2024.

Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) affects approximately 70% of people over the age of 70 (AoHL, 2020) and can often lead to communication difficulties, isolation and cognitive decline (Cardin, 2016). Although the brain networks involved in auditory speech perception in those with ARHL have been extensively investigated (see Slade et al., 2020), how these individuals process visual speech (lipreading), and how this contributes to successful communication, is relatively understudied. Using state-of-the-art neuroimaging techniques, the aims of this project are:

1. Investigate whether the mapping between neural representations of auditory and visual speech differ between those with ARHL and those without.
2. Investigate whether this mapping correlates with the degree of hearing loss and/or to audio-visual speech perception ability in individuals with ARHL. 

Overall, increasing our understanding of how visual speech is represented in the brains of those with ARHL, and how it contributes to speech perception and communication, will help improve communication advice and support to this growing population.

Funding will be through a competitive process via the Department of Experimental Psychology, UCL. Deadlines for early expression of interest (recommended) are 15th November 2023. Potential candidates should contact Dr Velia Cardin (velia.cardin@ucl.ac.uk) with a copy of their CV and a one-page statement of their research interests and relevance for this project. More information can be found here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/graduate/research-degrees/experimental-psychology-mphil-phd

We particularly encourage applications from deaf and hard-of-hearing students and/or students from minority ethnic groups who are currently under-represented at UCL and DCAL.

Supervisor: Velia Cardin

Applications are invited for a PhD student to work on multisensory processing and crossmodal plasticity in humans using neuroimaging methods. The deadline for the internal funding competition will be in early January 2024, starting the PhD studies in September 2024.

The remarkable capacity of the brain for functional and structural reorganisation is known as neural plasticity. Human congenital deafness results in anatomical and functional changes that affect sensory and cognitive processing, providing unique insights into our understanding of plasticity and the brain. The vast majority of the research on neural plasticity due to deafness and blindness focuses on the consequences on sensory processing and reorganisation, with much less focus on the unique information that they provide for our understanding of cognitive processes in the brain.

In this project you will use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study how sensory experience shapes the organisation of multisensory cognitive processes in the human brain. 

Funding will be through a competitive process via the Department of Experimental Psychology, UCL. Deadlines for early expression of interest (recommended) are 1st November 2023. Potential candidates should contact Dr Velia Cardin (velia.cardin@ucl.ac.uk) with a copy of their CV and a one-page statement of their research interests and relevance for this project. More information can be found here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/graduate/research-degrees/experimental-psychology-mphil-phd

We particularly encourage applications from deaf and hard-of-hearing students and/or students from minority ethnic groups who are currently under-represented at UCL and DCAL.

References

• Manini, B., Vinogradova, V., Woll, B., Cameron, D., Eimer, M., & Cardin, V. (2022). Sensory experience modulates the reorganization of auditory regions for executive processing. Brain.
• Cardin V, Rudner M, De Oliveira RF, Andin J, T Su M, Beese L, Woll B, Rönnberg J. (2018). The Organization of Working Memory Networks is Shaped by Early Sensory Experience. Cerebral Cortex. 28 (10):3540-3554. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhx222.
• Cardin V, Orfanidou E, Rönnberg J, Capek CM, Rudner M, Woll, B. (2013). Dissociating cognitive and sensory neural plasticity in human superior temporal cortex. Nature Communications. 4: 1413.