As spatial languages, sign languages rely on spatial cognitive processes that are not involved for spoken languages. Interlocutors have different visual perspectives of the signer's hands requiring a mental transformation for successful communication about spatial scenes. It is unknown whether visual-spatial perspective-taking (VSPT) or mental…

In ASL spatial classifier expressions, the location of the hands in signing space depicts the relative position of described objects. When objects are physically present, the arrangement of the hands maps to the observed position of objects in the world (Shared Space). For non-present objects, interlocutors must perform a mental transformation to…

Social abilities relate to performance on visual-spatial perspective-taking (VSPT) tasks for hearing nonsigners but may relate differently to VSPT abilities for deaf signers because of their distinct linguistic and social experiences. This research investigated whether deaf adults approach VSPT tasks nonsocially (as previously suggested for deaf…