Mental Rotation Abilities of Czech Speakers and Czech Sign Language Users: Linguistic Effects on Spatial Cognition?

Abstract

The way various facets of the cognitive domain of space are construed and communicated in spoken and signed languages is fundamentally different. Whereas spoken languages, themselves strikingly diverse in this respect, primarily employ lexical means (accompanied by gestures), signed languages use physical space as the only medium for expressing spatiality - using simultaneous classifier constructions in an iconic signing space.

Signers, when describing a configuration of objects in space, place the objects into signing space in an iconic manner, mostly taking their own perspective. Addressees thus perceive such descriptions as a mirrorimage.

Yet, that doesn't cause any comprehension difficulties for them. A question for psycholinguists rises: does this modality-specific exposure to conversed perspective lead to enhanced spatial-cognitive skills in signers, namely the mental rotation ability? May this be the case for the linguistic relativity?