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From: jody@tx.technion.ac.il (Jody Underwood)
Subject: ASL comparison survey -- Results
Organization: Technion, Israel Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 12:45:24 GMT
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Hi,

For those of you who are interested, I have completed collecting data
over the Web for the ASL (American Sign Language) fingerspelling
alphabet comparison survey.  The results (with pictures) can be found
at <http://mdrs1.technion.ac.il:8080/~jody/asl-results.html>.

Here is a summary of the results:  

1) People who were not familiar with the alphabet rated similarity
between letters very differently than people well versed in the
alphabet.  This says to me that teachers (experts) need to be aware of
the different perceptions of their beginning students.

2) I found pairs of letters that are considered very similar (by
beginners, most importantly), and also different from each other.  I
will teach these letters in an experiment to see if order and grouping
make a difference in the confusions of the similar letters made by
learners.

By the way, I'm still looking for participants in the Katakana survey.
If you can spare 10 minutes, please look at this site:
<http://mdrs1.technion.ac.il:8080/~jody/survey.html> and choose the
Katanana survey.  I want to run my experiment using two alphabets, and
I need similarity results for both alphabets in order to do so.

I thank you enormously for participating in these surveys.  I don't
know what I'd do if I didn't have access to the World Wide Web.

-Jody
--
Jody Underwood
jody@mdsun1.technion.ac.il
Doctoral candidate at The Technion, Israel Institute of Technology

Thesis topic: Using computers to help figure out how to optimally
teach new alphabets to foreign language learners.


--
jody@mdsun1.technion.ac.il	BarOn R&D Ltd.
				Gutwirth Science Park
				Technion City
				Haifa 32000, Israel
