Ne. Goldstein et Rs. Feldman, KNOWLEDGE OF AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE AND THE ABILITY OF HEARING INDIVIDUALS TO DECODE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS OF EMOTION, Journal of nonverbal behavior, 20(2), 1996, pp. 111-122
The relation between knowledge of American Sign Language (ASL) and the
ability to decode facial expressions of emotion was explored in this
study. Subjects were 60 college students, half of whom were intermedia
te level students of ASL and half of whom had no exposure to a signed
language. Subjects viewed and judged silent video segments of stimulus
persons experiencing spontaneous emotional reactions representing eit
her happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, or fear/surprise. Results indi
cated that hearing subjects knowledgeable in ASL were generally better
than hearing non-signers at identifying facial expressions of emotion
, although there were variations in decoding accuracy regarding the sp
ecific emotion being judged. In addition, females were more successful
decoders than males. Results have implications for better understandi
ng the nature of nonverbal communication in deaf and hearing individua
ls.