Visual Speech Perception and Manual Communication

Flashcards covering key terms and concepts on visual speech perception, speechreading, and manual communication systems.

Lip reading

An older term referring to the process of recognizing speech by observing the visual movements of a speaker's mouth and articulators.

Speechreading

A comprehensive and preferred research term for lip reading that includes visual cues beyond the mouth, such as facial expressions and environmental context.

Visemes

Groups of speech sounds (phonemes) that share a visually indistinguishable mouth appearance.

McGurk Effect

A perceptual phenomenon illustrating visual interference, where conflicting visual speech information alters what is audibly perceived.

Speechreading Enhancement

The improvement in overall speech recognition that occurs when auditory signals (even limited ones, such as fundamental frequency) are combined with visual cues.

Tactaid

A tactile cueing device designed to provide tactile speech signals to support visual speechreading.

Walden et al. (1977) Study

A study demonstrating that 14 hours of intensive speechreading training in adults with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss yielded significant identification improvements for certain visemes.

Forensic speechreading

The application of skilled lip-reading, often performed by Deaf individuals, to interpret silent visual speech for legal investigations and espionage.

Automatic speechreading

Artificial intelligence programs built as extensions of facial recognition systems to identify visemes automatically from video.

Cued Speech

A visual manual communication system using hand shapes for consonants and hand positions for vowels/diphthongs, performed simultaneously with spoken language.

Fingerspelling

A manual technique using distinctive handshapes to represent individual letters of an alphabet.

ASL Fingerspelling Alphabet

A one-handed manual alphabet system used in American Sign Language for spelling proper names, specific nouns, and English loan words.

BSL Fingerspelling Alphabet

A two-handed manual alphabet system utilized in British Sign Language for fingerspelling words.

Manually Coded English (MCE)

An umbrella term for signing systems created to visually represent the exact structure and grammar of spoken English.

Signing Exact English (SEE)

A specific manually coded language system that replicates spoken English syntax using initialisms, word-for-word signing, and explicit affix markers.

Initialisms (SEE-II)

A feature in Signing Exact English where the fingerspelled first letter of an English word is incorporated into the movement of its sign.

Affixes (SEE-II)

Manual signs added in SEE-II to represent English prefixes, suffixes, and tense markers (e.g., -s/es, -ing, -ed) that are not present in ASL grammar.

Contact Sign

A non-standardized signing method (formerly known as Pidgin Signed English) that uses signs in English word order without strict grammatical standardization.

American Sign Language (ASL)

A natural sign language with distinct grammatical rules including topic-comment word order, time indicator signs for tense, spatial usage, and non-manual signals.

CODA

An acronym standing for Child of Deaf Adults, referring to hearing individuals raised by Deaf parents who are typically fluent ASL users.

Auditory-Oral Approach

An educational philosophy for Deaf/HH children focusing on developing listening and spoken language without the use of sign language.

Total Communication

An educational approach utilizing simultaneous communication modalities (auditory, visual, and manual) tailored to the individual child's needs.

Bilingual-Bicultural Approach

An educational framework in Deaf education where ASL serves as the primary language of instruction, and English literacy and speech are taught as a second language.

Auditory-Visual Continuum

A continuum classifying the degree of visual vs. auditory support needed by a listener, ranging from purely Auditory (A) to purely Visual (V).