THE RECALL OF SIGNS AND WORDS BY DEAF

This paper reports a comparison of certain features of short-term memo ry between deaf and hearing subjects. The features relate to linguisti c material. The subjects' task was a serial recall of the stimuli. Sti muli were presented as German words or signs on a screen. With differe nt lists of similar stimuli it was possible to determine the code used in short-term memory. Both deaf and hearing subjects used primarily a phonological code. The memory span of these groups differed significa ntly: the hearing subjects were able to reproduce 1.2 items more than the deaf. A further aspect of the results refers to the semiotic statu s of oral movements in German Sign Language. We found chat this compon ent is processed together with the manual component of a sign, which i ndicates a difference between this language and American Sign Language , excluding a direct comparison between both languages.