Perception of iconicity in American sign language by hearing and deaf subjects.

Three groups of subjects differing in age, language experience, and familiarity with American Sign Language were compared on three tasks regarding the perception of iconicity in signs from American Sign Language. Subjects were asked to guess the meaning of signs, to rate signs for iconicity, and to state connections between signs and their meaning in English. Results showed that hearing college students, deaf adults, and hearing first-grade children perform similarly on tasks regarding iconicity. Results suggest a psycholinguistic definition of iconicity based on association values, rather than physical resemblances between signs and real-world referents.