Hand gesture recognition has been a major challenge during the recent years. Many of the hand gesture recognition systems however, have been restricted to a few number of possible movements. Some applications such as gesture recognition in understanding sign languages, include a large number of classes and need an automatic learning method for extracting the features of each class. An important...

This article presents receptive and expressive American Sign Language skills of 85 students, 6 through 22 years of age at a residential school for the deaf using the American Sign Language Receptive Skills Test and the Ozcaliskan Motion Stimuli. Results are presented by ages and indicate that students' receptive skills increased with age and were still developing across this age range. Students...

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As the field of ICT standardization has changed from a relatively static, monolithic environment into a very dynamic field in the last two decades, many formal standardization bodies, fora, consortia and other types of standards setting organizations (SSOs) have emerged. These SSOs have often competed against each other for the same application areas. To a large degree, these changes reflect de...

Natural language--spoken and signed--is a multichannel phenomenon, involving facial and body expression, and voice and visual intonation that is often used in the service of a social urge to communicate meaning. Given that iconicity seems easier and less abstract than making arbitrary connections between sound and meaning, iconicity and gesture have often been invoked in the origin of language ...

The "articulatory loop" for rehearsal of verbal materials in working memory has been shown not to be a unique hard-wired structure associated with spoken language. Specifically, a parallel rehearsal process for sign language occurs in fluent signers. Here we show that the same rehearsal process can occur for unfamiliar, nonmeaningful body movements. We conclude that working memory maintenance d...

A new sign language has been created by deaf Nicaraguans over the past 25 years, providing an opportunity to observe the inception of universal hallmarks of language. We found that in their initial creation of the language, children analyzed complex events into basic elements and sequenced these elements into hierarchically structured expressions according to principles not observed in gestures...

Support for Single Sign-On (SSO) is a frequently voiced requirement for Service-Oriented Computing. We discuss SSO strategies and approaches, their requirements and constraints. The two most prominent approaches in this field are presented, i.e. Microsoft Passport and Liberty Alliance. Because implementations of Liberty were not widely available and in order to understand the conceptual implica...

Despite the importance of sign language interpreting for many deaf students, there is surprisingly little research concerning its effectiveness in the classroom. The limited research in this area is reviewed, and a new study is presented that included 23 interpreters, 105 deaf students, and 22 hearing students. Students saw two interpreted university-level lectures, each preceded by a test of p...