I received my PhD in Psychology from the University of Chicago in June of 2024. My work explores the intersection of language and cognition through studies of speech, sign, and gesture.

Signers and speakers alike will often play with the forms of words to depict information (e.g., “its been a long day” —> “its been a looooooooooong day”). But what’s going on here? How does this work in a signed language? Is this behavior rule-governed? Do we need to learn how to do this or is it intuitive? In this line of work, I ask (1) how signers iconically modify lexeme signs and how this behavior is constrained by the phonology of ASL, (2) how this pattern compares to the silent gestures of non-signers, and (3) how deaf children acquiring sign come to learn how to “break the rules” in this way (Ferrara, Lu, and Goldin-Meadow, in press; Ferrara, Levan, and Goldin-Meadow, in prep).

Projects

Does a pressure toward maintaining motivated links between form and meaning shape sign language vocabularies? We use vector space modeling to examine how non-arbitrary forms are distributed within the lexicons of two unrelated sign languages (ASL and BSL). We show that increased semantic similarity corresponds to increased phonological similarity in both languages. However there are cross-linguistic differences in how these mappings are realized for signs in each language, suggesting that arbitrariness as well as cognitive or cultural influences may play a role in how these patterns are realized (Martinez del Rio†, Ferrara†, Kim†, Hakgüder, and Brentari, 2022).

Publications

In many sign languages, the sign for a shape involves using the hands to trace the outline of that shape in the signing space. However, signers must make many choices when approaching this task — whether to use one or two hands, which handshape to use, where to start on the shape, etc. Using data from signers, non-signers, as well as cross-linguistic dictionary studies, we explore the influence of geometry, visual perception, and language experience on how signers and gesturers depict shape (Ferrara and Napoli, 2019; Napoli and Ferrara, 2021; Ferrara and Napoli, in prep).

My work in post-stroke aphasia uses neuroimaging analyses to examine the relationship between location of brain damage and cognitive deficits. Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) involves segmenting lesioned tissue in a brain scan to capture the extent of damaged tissue (Ferrara, Cosset, and Buxbaum, 2022), and testing an association between deficit severity and lesion status in each voxel (Mirman, Landrigan, Kokolis, Verillo, Ferrara, and Pustina, 2017). These methods allow us to explore how the magnitude and location of the stroke impact different linguistic and cognitive abilities (Britt, Ferrara, and Mirman, 2016).

Iconicity in gradience verb depictions

Ferrara, C., Goldin-Meadow, S. (in prep). How iconicity and arbitrariness can work together in language: A comparison of signers and silent gesturers

Ferrara, C., Lu, J., Goldin-Meadow, S. (in press). Playing with Language in the Manual Modality: How do signers iconically modulate their signs?

Representing shape in sign and silent gesture

Ferrara, C., Napoli, D.J. (in prep). Where do we begin?: Signers’ and gesturers’ strategies for choosing starting point in shape depictions

Napoli, D.J., Ferrara, C. (2021). Correlations Between Handshape and Movement in Sign Languages. Cognitive Science, 45(5).

Ferrara, C., & Napoli, D.J. (2019). Manual Movement in Sign Languages: One Hand Versus Two in Communicating Shapes. Cognitive Science, 43(9).

Iconicity in the lexicon († = shared first-authorship)

Martinez del Rio†, A., Ferrara†, C., Kim†, S., Hakgüder, E., Brentari, D. (2022). Identifying the Correlations Between the Semantics and Phonology of ASL: A Vector Space Approach. Frontiers in Psychology.

Aphasia

Ferrara, C., Coslett, H. B., Buxbaum, L. (2022). Manual Lesion Segmentation. In D. Pustina & D. Mirman (Eds.), Lesion-to-Symptom Mapping: Principles and Tools.

Mirman, D., Landrigan, J. F., Kokolis, S., Verillo, S., Ferrara, C., & Pustina, D. (2017). Corrections for multiple comparisons in voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping. Neuropsychologia.

Britt, A. E., Ferrara, C., & Mirman, D. (2016). Distinct effects of lexical and semantic competition during picture naming in younger adults, older adults, and people with aphasia. Frontiers in psychology, 7.

Other

Leeson, L., Stewart, M., Ferrara, C., Drexel, I., Nilsson, P., & Cooper, M. (2017). “A President for all of the Irish”: Performing Irishness in an interpreted Inaugural Presidential Speech. In C. Stone & L. Leeson (Eds), Interpreting and the politics of recognition. London: Routledge.

Contact me:

✉️ caseyferrara@uchicago.edu

📌 Green 517
Department of Psychology
University of Chicago
Chicago, IL 60647, USA

Other Links:

🅁 Researchgate

🄰 Academia.edu

Google Scholar

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