Justine Mertz (LLF)
Building online experiments with Labvanced

Signs are composed of four phonological classes (handshape, location, orientation and movement), and it is still unclear whether these sign subcategories are stored categorically or continuously in the signers mind. We use a new experimental design to investigate categorical perception in handshape and location in French Sign Language (LSF). Differently from previous studies, we exploit the visuo-gestural modality of sign languages by presenting our stimuli simultaneously instead of sequentially, in addition to recording reaction times to test for differences across participants.

The number of experiments has increased substantially, especially following the health crisis. Behavioral experiments are diverse and require the control of many parameters. To test categorical perception in LSF, we used the Labvanced online experiment software (Finger et al., 2017). It is a tool that allows the presentation of varied material (images, videos, sounds...), as well as the recording of many user responses (text inputs, keyboard/mouse responses etc.), but also indirect measures (reaction time, eye-tracking...), all with the recording of pre-recorded or recordable variables. Thanks to this tool, we were able to conduct our experiment online and test participants remotely. It is still important to note that this is a very new tool that still has limitations. I will give a brief presentation of my study on categorical perception in LSF, and then present an overview of the software, its main features with an emphasis on its strengths and weaknesses.

The speech will be in French.