See my title up here.
It's a bit strange.
Many deaf individuals
have similar experiences as me.
It's the opposite of
a spoonerism.
Do you know what spoonerism is?
Yes, do you know what
a spoonerism is?
Anyone? Anyone have an example
of a spoonerism?
It's where you misspeak
or kind of, you know,
show embarrassing desires
or something similar
to that case.
Well, this is something I hear,
and I think I hear it one way
and I'm saying it this way,
like, "A butter up in a doggy
dog world,"
until finally somebody
explains to me
that that's not the way I'm
supposed to say it,
and it's embarrassing.
So it really should be dog eat
dog world.
Have you heard that before?
It's an English idiom.
It means, "Oh, wow, they are
competitive,
"they will, you know, do their
best to beat you,"
or, "I'm gonna beat you,"
you know, that kind of thing,
very competitive.
Now, if I misunderstand
or misheard,
I misheard for "butter up
in a doggy dog world."
But I like it because it's
more friendly, right?
It's cute, a doggy dog.
It's more supportive.
I think it fits you all
very well.
It fits the Bridges program,
right?
We support each other
in a big way.
This is a very, very special
and unique thing to have,
a resource here to support
each other.
I'm very proud to be here
and I'm proud of
the Bridges program.
I thank NTID for establishing
the Bridges program,
Dr. Hauser for being involved,
and everyone.
It means a lot to me to be
involved with this endeavor.
I want to live up to the wow
expectation, right?
I did watch a few past lectures.
I also talked with Peter about
what is expected of me.
I wasn't sure about presenting
completely scientifically,
and he explained that
we want to see
more about mentoring experience
and how I got to this point,
as he mentioned previously.
Now, this is a very different
experience for me.
I haven't done a presentation
like this before.
I enjoyed preparing to talk
about how I got here.
And there's something else
that I've never experienced
in my life,
and I'm not sure why.
No one has ever sat down with me
and said, "Rain, this is
how it works.
"Rain, I'm gonna tell you
"how your personal life
is gonna go,
how to balance your children and
life and everything with work."
I mean, yes, I balance with
friends or I talked with friends
about how to balance,
but that never happened with
mentors or advisors
or anyone else in my experience.
So I plan to put it all out
there for you all
and talk about the intersection
of my personal life
and how it intersects with
my work.
Now, for the academic journey
part of my story,
the academic seas,
the journey through--
or navigating through
academic seas.
This is what I envisioned.
It's a good picture,
right? Ha ha.
Some people sail along,
they run into an obstacle,
and go off track, and they don't
have a straight path in life.
Sometimes they face an obstacle
and they wonder what they do,
figure out if they should
change their plan,
change their major,
and that's OK.
But really, my journey
was very straight.
It was a pretty straight path.
Very interesting.
And I'll be showing a little
more about that later.
My outline for today,
I'll be talking about
my experience growing up
and identifying myself
as a Deaf person,
going through school.
I will also throw out
some examples
of research projects
that I've done,
'cause I am aware
that students--
you all might be interested,
and I can give you some ideas
about how to go along
with your research
and progress through that.
But first, before I get into
my research experiences
and before I show you
baby pictures,
I want to talk about you
as Deaf people
and how you got started
as a Deaf person.
You all. I want you to think
about that.
It's interesting.
I think there are two cohorts.
On the far right.
Now, young adults and children
have technology
to test at birth.
They use an active brain
recognition software
while they're sleeping.
They can tell if the baby
can hear or not.
And if they're not sure,
they can just test again
and test again until they're
absolutely sure
whether a child has--
is deaf or not.
That's today.
The National Institutes of
Health have a goal
or a target...
of effective detection,
and they want all babies
to be tested.
And they can test 90% of all
babies.
They want that rate.
On the far left,
way over there. Ha ha ha!
Old people like me fall
in that area.
Our parents had to rely on
common sense
and interaction with the baby.
Often parents would say,
"There's something different
about my baby.
"I don't know what exactly."
And that fact has implications.
Obviously, you know
the statistics.
Nine out of 10 deaf babies
are born to hearing parents.
And most of them--well, maybe
not here in Rochester,
but other parts of the nation--
hearing parents often have never
met another deaf person ever.
And the first deaf person they
meet is their own child,
and they don't know what to do
in that situation.
Imagine, the baby
is 2 days old,
and the parents,
the hearing parents,
find out the baby is deaf.
Typically, what happens is
they get the medical view,
as you can read here.
And this is an official
statement from the
American Academy of Pediatrics
Preventative
Task Force statement.
And that statement and what they
hear from their doctors
is how they take the statement.
"I'm sorry."
"It's a loss."
"It's a diagnosis," or "Your
baby has been diagnosed with..."
and that's more of
a negative term.
It kind of has a stigma
related to it--related to it,
but I think all of us,
I think that's how all of us
start as deaf people.
We think we're different or
we're labeled as different.
I wanted to put that out
there first
because my research can
benefit us
and how we can prevent--
or, um, prove that this
is not true, this statement.
Now, I want to also caution you
not to blame parents.
This is what they get
from the beginning.
They don't have other deaf
people interacting
and helping with their
decisions,
so we need to partner with
the parents as well.
One consequence I've noticed
through interviews
with Deaf people
is that often they express
guilt.
Like, they feel like they
are the cause
of the child's hearing loss.
It's funny how when humans
are faced with a loss,
we tend to ask why.
"Why did my mom get cancer,"
for example.
Or, "Why did my grandfather
have to die?"
But with positive things like,
"I got married,"
we never ask why.
We only ask why for the more
negative-associated things.
I've collected stories,
They're examples.
It's a personal interest of mine
to collect these stories,
not part of my research.
I'm not sure exactly how much
time I have.
I have quite a bit still, but...
I grew up in L.A., Los Angeles.
And I was asked why--
or I asked one person
why they were deaf,
and he said, "Well, my mom told
me I was playing with a candle
"and I poured wax in my ear,
"and that's why I'm deaf
in both ears."
And sometimes they just
completely accept
and internalize what their
parents say,
and they don't think about it
for themselves.
The second one was a deaf
friend, professor,
very smart woman,
and I asked her why.
And she said, "My grandmother
told me that"--
or, "My mom told me that
one day my grandmother
"took me out on a stroll
on a beautiful day
"and we were sitting near
a train,
"and, you know, the train
rushed by
"and it was so loud
that I became deaf."
Another example. I used to work
in something like a hospital.
And a nurse who worked there
ran clinical trials
for the medical studies
that they were doing.
We were just talking one day
and she told me
that her sister--
her sister's child was deaf.
I asked her why
or if she knew why.
And her sister said that she
bumped the table
while she was pregnant,
hit her belly on the table
and the child became deaf.
And then the last example.
It's now my turn and my story.
My parents have a story, too,
of course.
I'll tell you in just a minute.
Well, my parents said,
I don't know.
They thought one day, or well,
one time,
I had a little bit of a cold,
all babies have colds.
They thought maybe it was
a cold.
Plus, they took me to visit
my grandparents and we flew,
and they think that's
why I became deaf,
because I had a cold and I flew
on an airplane.
But it's very interesting.
All of these people
are intelligent,
but they're not using logic.
I even met one person
who has many family members
who are deaf,
and I asked why, and he said
they were all sick.
But the reason is possibly
because they were born hearing
and became deaf,
so they think possibly,
if they're not born deaf
and they acquire deafness, some
genetic forms are progressive.
You aren't always born
with them.
In reality, this is a very
important part of Deaf identity.
Most often, they don't know why
they're deaf.
Probably 50% of the time,
people don't know
the cause of their hearing loss.
But we are all scientists,
we're all curious,
we all want explanations.
I think that's part of why we're
all here today
and why I'm here, why I'm
a scientist indeed,
because being deaf has forced me
to ask why
and ask questions about
many things.
Now, if you're hearing or if
you're not faced with obstacles,
there's no reason to ask why
or question why things happen.
That's the beginning of science,
that curiosity,
that natural inclination
to ask why.
So there's one thing in common
with these pictures.
Can anyone find it?
Oh, I forgot to say something
else first about my parents.
They're hearing people.
Forgot to tell you that.
I mean, if it wasn't obvious
enough,
you could probably guess it.
But my parents are hearing
individuals,
which means that I was born in
a foreign country.
That's what it felt like.
I mean, really, that was
my experience.
That's the best analogy
I can come up with.
Oftentimes, I look puzzled.
But I was playing the piano
and I was a deaf kid.
Sounds funny, right?
One thing--remember
what I asked about.
You know, what's in common
with these pictures here?
Anything? Anything at all?
Ideas?
No, no, not that.
Oh, yes, I'm going to talk about
that happiness in a second,
but I don't think you'll
guess it.
I'm trying to make you guess it,
though.
Can anyone come up with it?
My parents had no idea
that I was deaf
in any of those pictures.
Yeah.
I'm about 1 or 2 in that
picture.
Now, my parents finally figured
it out when I was 3 1/2.
And we can talk more about that
in a second.
But as you can tell from
these pictures,
I'm a smiling kid.
Remember that one graph that,
you know,
we were talking about diagnosing
deaf kids and all that?
I was born before that cutoff.
There was no anxiety about
having me as a kid.
All I was shown was love
and affection and touch.
And that's the only way
you can really talk
to a child at that age.
It's not a language,
it's a touch.
I mean, kids can't express
themselves formally,
but it's that love and care
that you can feel.
So is anyone--can anyone guess
what's wrong with this picture?
It's kind of funky, right?
Does anyone know Freud,
the psychologist?
He came up with
the Electra complex,
and I might be a good case
for him.
I called my parents by
their first names.
I don't know why I did,
but I always have.
My best guess is because
whenever I would look up,
I would see them moving
their mouths,
and I just would do
what they did.
And so if person called Dad
Bobby, I would call Dad Bobby.
So that's just what I knew
from other people.
And that went on for a while.
I was such a jovial child,
really.
So read this note from my mom.
It's a really nice note.
My mom was trying to show her--
what do you call it--
her resolve, I guess.
Does anyone have a sign
for that?
Um, no, not like what I see
in the audience.
More like her, her--
you know, her steadfastness.
Kind of stubbornness, almost.
No, not quite. That might be too
strong a word.
But it's almost like
a determination
to want to fix something.
Determination, that's the word.
Caught the interpreter. Yeah.
Thank you, Matt.
Tried to find that right word.
I just wanted to fit it
in there.
Determination,
that's what it was.
So my mom had this moment where
she needed to fix it,
fix it all.
So she wrote all this out.
On the top you see those
letters, CCS.
And that stood for
Critical Child Services--
rather Crippled Child Services.
So I was diagnosed at
the John Tracy Clinic in L.A.
So what's going on in these
pictures now?
What's happening?
You're right.
You can't really see because of
the way my head is oriented,
but look at where it's pointing,
look at where I'm looking.
There's a book in my dad's lap,
but I'm looking
the opposite direction.
And I'm a baby,
but I know that I need
to lip read,
and I know where to look.
And I was not aided
at this time.
Hearing aids in the right
picture.
I included this because I
thought it might be beneficial
for you all as students in
trying to read an audiogram.
I had my first audiogram
at 3 1/2.
And it really wasn't that bad.
I kind of was right in the
middle of the speech range.
It was a moderate hearing loss.
So do you see that long dashed
line right in the middle
of the speech banana?
It's that yellow line
right there.
I mean, maybe that's why I could
kind of hear
some of those vowels
based on my audiogram,
but, you know, I had trouble
with like the "s" sound.
It's really high-pitch
consonants that I struggle with,
but my vowels are
pretty much there.
So I was retested at 5,
and I was on a very different
plane at that point.
I was considered severe
to profound at that point.
So maybe it's progressive.
We're progressive for
progressive.
However we want to sign it.
Maybe it was a progressive loss,
which could have been passed on
through my family.
And this is my most recent
audiogram,
which is roughly the same.
So from about the age
of 5 to now,
I have plateaued.
So I definitely benefited
from hearing aids.
I don't wear mine all the time,
but when I do, it's pretty much,
you know, I can pick up sounds.
However, spoken speech I cannot
understand.
I can identify one's voice,
but not what they're saying
necessarily.
Funny, right?
I know. I hated my hearing aids.
I used to actually leave them
out on the playground
when I could at school.
There were a couple of times
I can remember my mom--
well, we used to go to
a public pool,
and they would be in the bottom
of the pool or something,
so wasn't too keen on them.
My parents had a lot of grief
over my hearing aids.
And then in this picture,
it kind of comes into conflict
with everything else.
I don't know how old I was,
but I definitely remember
what happened.
We went to some kind of
spiritual temple
and they were doing that, you
know, with their hands.
They put their hands on my ears
and were trying to come up with
different curses
and spells to fix me.
And I remember when we left,
I was like,
"Dad, what happened?"
And he was starting to
get teary--teared up.
He said to me something along
the lines of,
"We brought you--" I don't know
what it was called.
It was like a Chinese medicine,
like an Eastern approach.
It was something that was
supposed to be homeopathic.
And this was way back when.
So the doctor told my parents
that they fed me too much milk
and that was what happened.
That's why I was deaf.
So yeah, have a read.
Oh. "Hi, Mom, Dad, I'm lecturing
for a class on Deaf Culture,
"and my topic is about parents'
reactions
"to finding out their
child is deaf.
"Can you send me a short bit
on your thoughts on this? Rain."
Dad's answer: "When we first
received the diagnosis
"that you were hard of hearing,
"I wanted to get a second
opinion.
"I was adamant that
the test was wrong.
"Then during your retest,
"I wanted so bad to hear
for you,
"but had to recognize the fact
"that you couldn't hear
certain frequencies.
"That turned out to be
a special day
"because that's when Mom and I
faced the hurdles
"we could start to jump over
with you.
"And we made all the new
connections
"to get guidance to do that."
Now, the problem here
is that back then
there were no resources
for parents.
There was nothing then.
I mean, sure, things are in
a different place now,
but when I grew up, I remember
my parents just feeling stuck.
"We were told quite adamantly
to use lip reading with you.
"We also inquired about schools,
"and we were also advised not
to take you out
"of the mainstream classes.
"I wanted to find a deaf school
for you,
"but was strongly advised to
stay in the mainstream
"public school system."
So I promised my friends
I would use this picture.
The top one is my mom's
passport photo.
Again, my mom at that time has
no idea that I'm deaf.
"We were shocked because
we had no experience
"with deafness and had none
in the family.
"Also, we were in denial
for a while,
"thinking that it was wax
in your ears.
"We didn't realize right away
because you compensated so well
"and were so smart and happy.
"Our neighbor said you weren't
hearing her,
"and so I immediately began
testing from behind you.
"Later, when we were
at the park,
"you were running by me and I
was yelling at you.
"I could see by your dreamy
smile that you weren't
"really being naughty by simply
ignoring me."
The boxes.
Being aided,
having those packs on,
taking them off at the end of
the day for recess.
We would be all over the place.
I remember, I was in a deaf
and hard of hearing
mainstream program.
Here's where I was.
Hot pink building!
Western California. Ha!
Hollywood.
Already out of the closet.
We were not allowed to use
sign language.
I mean, mildly punished if we
were using any visual language.
But it was interesting.
The first time that I signed was
actually on a bus.
I think it was like one program
all got together.
So kids from all over were
bussed into the same place,
to one school, and we were
coming from all over the place.
So I remember that the bus was
probably about an hour
every day.
I would pass out because
I was a kid.
I was so shot by the end of
the day.
So we would get on the bus
in the morning for an hour,
and my day on the bus
for an hour,
and I remember getting home
completely exhausted.
My parents decided that
that was it.
No more.
So they moved me over to a
school where I was the only one.
Across the street.
Where I was the only one.
Now, middle school
and high school,
where I was the only one.
I was at a private Catholic
girls' school
where I had a very nice
education, yes,
but not required to comply with
the Americans with
Disabilities Act.
They completely poo-pooed it
and told me that it was
something
that I had to take care of.
And that's where the dog eat dog
world comes in,
this place.
It was tough.
I mean, I was in tears
regularly.
I felt lost.
And all I wanted so much
was to do well,
but I kept encountering
mistakes.
Like, a simple thing would be
like--
I mean, every day, I just kind
of felt like
I was missing out on something,
or sometimes I had--
you know, the PA every day would
do the morning announcements,
and I can remember clearly
one day we were in class
and everyone was so excited
about something,
and this was after
the announcements.
So, well, first everyone is,
you know,
very carefully listening
with their ears,
and then is--everyone is happy.
All the girls are super excited.
And I asked one of my friends
what happened.
She said, "Oh, it's a free
dress day."
Means we don't have to wear
our uniforms, which was great.
And for me, I was so excited.
So I showed up the next day in
my own plain clothes,
and I was the only one.
Because it wasn't free dress day
after all.
So I kind of just went back
to my corner.
But the teachers, they didn't
simply understand
how to deal with me or take care
of me in any capacity.
So my parents told me no more.
And again, I was pulled
from that program
to look for another solution.
So then I went over to a public
high school in L.A.
And I was there with a lot of
crime in the area.
There were metal detectors
in the building.
We had gangs.
It's the heart of LA.
The expectations there
for the students
were to just show up to class
and, wow, you were a star
student.
So for me there, you know,
bright and innocent and giddy,
I just got As the whole time
because I showed face.
That was it.
That was the expectation.
The bar was set so low
in that public school.
And this was the complete
polar experience
to what I had in the Catholic
school.
In that girls' school,
the expectations were
beyond advanced
and left me struggling.
I felt drowned.
But in the public school,
they were able to help
without a real investment.
I mean, I got As because
they said,
"Oh, hey, Rain showed up,"
and everyone else was just
ditching class.
So Rain gets As, and of course
they loved me for that.
But with one exception here.
The coach hated me.
Hated me. Oh, my gosh.
He would look at me and just
tell me that I sucked.
And I guess I was kind of cruddy
at basketball anyway, but...
So personal part of things.
So I talked a little bit
to my career
and the impact that it's had
on my own family.
And, of course, my children
and my family
have an impact on my career.
And, you know, the pros and cons
that come with that
are just a part of life.
You got to roll with it.
So I have 4 kids.
Yep, two of them are mine
and two of them have been mine
for a while.
I was remarried.
So this Friday, I'm flying out
to Gallaudet University
for a graduation ceremony for
my deaf daughter--stepdaughter.
There she is.
Congrats to her.
So I went to school at
the University of California
San Diego.
And overall, it was truly
a nice experience.
I rather enjoyed myself.
Of course, I did feel isolated
and in some ways,
it was a challenge.
But I was able to survive thanks
to a few good friends,
quite a few, so it was positive
in some regards.
So I got there for
my undergraduate program,
and my first major was in...
That's what I wanted to do,
Urban Studies and Planning
and Forestry Science.
I thought that I wanted to
research bear scat
and really get into the
migration patterns of bears,
where they start, where they go,
the human impact on bears,
and all that fun stuff.
And I really loved it.
But there was one day that
someone told me--
they were giving me a face
more than anything,
and they were just like why?
It was just this cruddy
attitude.
They said, "What do you mean?
You can't do that.
"You're deaf. You can't go into
the forest on your own.
"It's too dangerous.
And the pay sucks.
"And how are you gonna have
a family?"
And to me, that
really rang true.
I was very naive and kind of
a follower.
I didn't have my parents there,
so this person kind of just took
me under their wing.
But...
I do. I love backpacking.
I love going out and making
my own adventure.
Now, I still envision myself
doing this.
I had to give up a little--
you know, sacrifice a little bit
but I hope to have some of this
in my life still.
UCSD was a wonderful experience
for me
because of the most amazing
mentors that I had.
It was like I won the lottery,
truly.
I had no idea that these
researchers and scientists
were there until I actually
arrived at the university.
I do have to credit myself,
actually,
because how I found them,
really, like the ranger
that I wanted to be,
I did look, I searched
in my own backyard.
I didn't, you know, ignore what
was right around me.
And I paid attention to who
was important
and who was who in that area.
I found these people.
And they really impacted me
so very much.
I planned to say a bit about
each of these individuals,
but I think for the sake
of time, I'll go on.
But if you want to know how they
each impacted me,
we can talk after
the presentation
or at some other time.
And, of course, there are
amazing books
that these individuals have
written
that have had a large impact
on my life and my career.
OK, now deep breath.
And we'll talk about research.
[Laughs]
All right, we'll start with
the big picture,
and then narrow it down
a little bit.
So the big picture is I study
deaf people
and the importance of
sign language.
There are many theories
about language and cognition.
But we need...
If it's really universal,
it should apply to deaf people
also.
So studying these individuals
can help us to learn which
structures of the language
are universal
and what are based on
the modality,
speech versus sign language.
In Dr. Hauser's work,
he considers parts of cognition
and how they impact language.
Is everything OK?
Just some tech difficulties.
I just fell in love with
this topic.
I'm not sure why it impacted me
so much,
but probably a similar reason to
it impacting you.
I'm sure one day deaf people
have the realization
of, "Oh, I'm special.
"It's not a negative thing
to be deaf,
"but deaf gain."
You know that there are
moments of the similarity,
but the unique benefits that
deaf individuals have,
similarly as language.
There was a moment from mentors
and their impact on me
that I found that ASL
is very rich.
American Sign Language is
wonderful and beautiful
and such an amazing language.
A simple example is phonemes.
ASL has phonemes, and, wow,
the first time I found that out
I was just amazed.
Another thing that was amazing
for me about linguistics--
well, not really linguistics,
but human language in general.
I was floored, I mean, just
simply amazed
that we all have rules
that we follow.
I always thought, yeah,
somebody writes a dictionary
and gives it to us,
similar to God.
Or I thought it was the
president, you know,
maybe the president
who invented language,
when I was growing up,
of course.
Even when I got to college, I
didn't completely understand
that language is yours,
language is mine.
It's not theirs.
They're just some abstract
concept.
And I'll give some examples.
This gentleman here,
David Perlmutter,
and David Swinney.
They were my first teachers
in my undergrad career
who taught me about
the psychology of language
and linguistics.
David Perlmutter,
a former linguist,
well, both of them are,
but David Swinney is
a psycholinguist,
and then a linguist--
Dr. Perlmutter is a linguist.
So I showed up to class,
and the first example that I was
just blown away with was...
It doesn't really exist in ASL,
but you can take a word--
absolutely, abso-fucking-lutely.
Do you understand?
We broke it up.
So with ASL...
Do it again.
You're right, it doesn't work.
Try it a different way,
it doesn't work.
It just doesn't work.
Anybody? Try it yourself.
Suppose you say
abso-fucking-lutely.
That works fine.
But if you try to say
absolute-fuckly,
it doesn't work.
I mean, it doesn't roll
off the tongue like it should.
Does that make sense how you
interject another word
into another word?
Some of the ways it sounds
appropriate--or sounds good,
and some it doesn't.
So...
I agreed with him that
rules are good,
but sometimes you have to
break rules
or rules are broken,
and that was just absolutely
fascinating for me.
You know, I think I'll give you
possibly 2 examples,
depending on time.
For my master's thesis, I worked
with Karen Emmorey.
I was interested in identity.
You know, iconicity--
when a sign
looks like what it actually is,
umbrella or drink or cup,
that's iconic.
And then words like music
or signs like music or library
are not iconic.
Giraffe is iconic,
but rat is not so much.
So if you can imagine what
your brain looks like--
the dictionary for
all the words.
Where is the dictionary?
In your brain.
Or try and think of a website,
what it looks like.
I don't know. I don't know what
it looks like.
I try to Google, "What does the
World Wide Web look like?"
Um, hard to find anything
concrete about that.
So there are connections
between cells
happening within your brain.
Millions and millions of--
maybe even trillions
of connections going on
in your brain.
And your memories are stored
in those connections.
That's your dictionary.
Well, how is it organized,
though?
How do I go find one word
and then find a different word
quickly?
Imagine you're a librarian
of your own brain.
How do you go find the word that
you're looking for so quickly?
How does it work?
Is it alphabetical order?
Those are the types of questions
that people were asking
back at this time when I started
my thesis work.
I was curious about iconicity.
And if that was a property
that represents--or is
represented in the brain.
Going back to David Swinney,
who, unfortunately, passed away.
I love him.
He was a wonderful man.
He invented this technique,
the lexical decision task.
He came up with priming, really,
and it became the lexical
decision task.
So what you do for this task,
Dave Swinney was really
the first person
who used real time testing to
study the brain
and how it's organized.
Before, it was more offline
and "Let me think about that
and then respond."
You know, a lot of things can
inhibit your response.
But he wanted a real time,
accurate representation
of your brain and your mind.
So there were quick trials
where you ask a person
to just say yes or no
if it's a word
or it's not a word.
And there are variations
of this now,
but I will show you
this example,
what we originally used.
You might see a word
like "guitar" signed.
You say yes or no.
And then a word that's not
actually a word, like this,
and you'll say no, or the
subject will respond no.
I'm trying to think of
an English example,
but you understood that there
are words
that are possible or not.
So you say yes or no.
Now, what my subjects
did not know,
we were manipulating
the relationship
between the order of the words.
If they saw the guitar
and then the piano,
we wondered if they would be
faster at responding to "piano,"
and the answer is yes.
There is a strong semantic
priming correlation
or relationship.
That's because you're
facilitating the neurons
or brain cells in your brain.
They're getting excited
and they're getting started
and active.
And now something shows up next
that is related
and they're already excited,
and so they just
latch on to that.
But iconicity may help as well.
And if it does, that means
it's important for your
mental dictionary.
Suppose you see "guitar"
and then "music,"
these signs, right after
each other.
And we measure your
reaction time,
and then we compare "guitar"
followed by "piano"
and we measure reaction time
for that.
The 3 pictures you see are
called experimental conditions
within subjects,
and we mix it up,
analyze if there's a difference
between them.
So if iconicity facilitates
recall,
then the prime word that's
iconic--
or they'll react faster to one
that's iconic
versus one that's not iconic.
And there was no difference.
My dissertation was on motion
perception.
It's called psychophysics.
It's a technique used to measure
the threshold.
I'm finger spelling fast.
I'm a little bit nervous, but...
It measures the threshold
for seeing motion.
Now, I'm interested in this
concept out there
that deaf people have
expert vision,
and I wanted to test that
in different ways
to see if deaf individuals have
super vision.
It's a popular idea.
If you isolate specific
simple tasks,
you don't see much of
an improvement.
But I do see deaf individuals
improve with periphery,
and that's partly from Matt Dye
and Peter Hauser
have worked on those studies,
studying deaf individuals'
peripheral vision
And I wrote about that also in
my dissertation.
I'm not sure if it's true
everywhere,
but it's what's called
a staple thesis.
I still had to write a package
of sorts
with the introduction, chapters,
what's paper 1,
and then the transitions.
I still had to put together
a packet
that looked like a dissertation.
However, I was able to use
the papers to include in there.
That helped my career
quite a bit.
It was a wonderful thing
that I did that.
I'm happy that I rolled up
my sleeves to publish
before I finished school.
I did my master's degree with
Karen Emmorey for a year,
and then I worked on my later
part of my dissertation
for another year and a half.
Then for my post-doctoral
fellowship,
the Retina Foundation of
the Southwest in Dallas, Texas.
I was there for almost 4 years.
Something happened on the way.
I became pregnant. Oops.
So I got to Dallas--
well, well, OK, so...
I had spousal issues,
what you call 2 body problems,
you know.
You're, you know, trying
to go one place
and the university or location
has to hire 2 people
or whatever.
So I finished graduate school.
My husband got his Ph.D.
prior to me,
got a good job in Dallas.
And so I realized, ooh, I needed
to search for something there,
and I found the RFS, the Retina
Foundation of the Southwest.
And, oh, it was a famous place
and I thought
this would be great.
I really was not looking forward
to working with babies.
Ugh. I did not want to work
with babies.
But then I got pregnant,
so, ha ha, I first moved,
worked on my dissertation,
flew back 7 months pregnant,
and my committee had no idea
for my defense
that I was pregnant
ahead of time.
So I'm standing there for
my dissertation
all, you know, 7 months pregnant
and they were convinced that
they couldn't fail us
because they had to pass us.
"You know, what if there was
an emergency
"and she has the baby
while she's here?"
So I was 7 months pregnant,
did my dissertation,
came back and started
my post-doc.
So I flew home, had my
baby shower on Monday,
had my defense, my dissertation
defense on Wednesday,
flew back on Friday to Dallas,
and started my new job
the following Monday.
And I worked training for
about 2 months,
went through the learning
process,
learning this job,
how to work with blind babies
and children.
It was clinical.
It was different.
My dissertation
was basic science.
This was clinical work.
I then had a short leave because
of having the baby,
and it was nice because
academics
you can be flexible
about hours,
so I built up my hours, but went
back full-time very quickly.
It was fascinating work,
and I published several papers
during my time here.
There was one baby that
was born blind,
and then they had surgery,
and they were wondering
how long after
they were able to see.
Or if a baby was born blind
with a cataract,
and then they had surgery
to remove the cataract
suppose at 6 months,
we wondered if that was
possible.
Would they be able to see
after that surgery?
We can measure the critical
period for these babies.
My own topic was strabismus.
Strabismus.
And that was interesting because
the eyes turn in
and can't converge in the brain.
They're supposed to converge
together,
but they can't if one is off
from the other,
so I researched motion
perception in those children.
We used clinical tools.
I learned a lot about variety
of testing methods
and diagnos--visual
and functional abilities.
Thank you. Ha ha!
This is me with my child.
I was able to bring them
and test them, too.
I thought that was nice.
I liked testing babies because,
oh, wow,
I can bring my own baby
and use the electrodes
and test and do the metrics
and everything on my baby.
We did VP.
I loved that work
because that means that you
measure the actual activity
in the brain.
And you can attach electrodes
to the back
and measure from the back,
'cause you might ask a baby,
"Can you see this?"
and "Tell me what you can see,"
and they can't report anything.
So they just have to sit there
and watch what's happening.
And we just measure their
brain activity.
If you see quite a spike or,
you know, if it spikes,
you can see it very clearly.
Some of the kids that we tested
were very nonverbal.
So this was a good tool
to use with them.
I brought my kid.
I only had one son at that time,
so for conferences, meetings,
I would bring him along.
So currently I am
a research scientist,
and that's the position that
I serve in.
I'm not in a tenure track,
I'm not in a permanent position.
I do strictly rely on what's
called soft money,
which means that I'm dependent
on getting grants
in an effort to support myself.
And let's hold on for a sec.
So it's nice in the sense that
it gives me a lot of flexibility
and my career is wonderful as
far as what I do
and the position that I have.
However, that kind of, you know,
unknown about
if I'll be there in the
long term is challenging
in its own way.
I was able to move back to
the University of California's
San Diego
because of that 2 body problem
again.
My husband was hired for another
position in San Diego,
which was funny to me because,
you know, I mean, it's beautiful
and people think that we missed
La Jolla County
because it's a beautiful place
in San Diego,
but I didn't want to be
out west, I really didn't.
I'd already been there,
done that.
But my husband had a really,
really wonderful opportunity,
Director of R&D
for the, uh...Pfizer.
So, but, yeah, I mean,
it was a great opportunity
for him, truly.
Just right next to UCSD,
which was wonderful as well.
So for us, we were starting
to plan,
and I was wondering,
"What do I do?"
Oh, and I had applied
for my own grant.
And I got it.
And then I went to UCSD
and I said,
"Hey. Hey, guys. Look at me.
Look what I got.
"You want a piece?
You want to hire me?"
And they brought me on board.
So this is my start.
I got a grant with
Karen Emmorey.
Nope. Karen--Karen Dobkins.
And it was fun because now I was
able to work with babies.
And you see this set of slides
up here with vision development.
Babies can't see necessarily
very well at first,
and that's in many ways.
It's not just like vaguity,
but colors don't come in
to play,
motion as well, as well as the
control of where the eyes gaze.
All of those abilities emerge
over time as the baby develops.
So I don't know if you remember,
this whole time I've been
talking about experiences
and how it's shaped who I am as
an individual.
So I wanted to know if we can do
this for babies.
I mean, of course, it's
unethical to, you know,
put a baby in a closet for
a few months
or a red room or something.
You can't.
You can't do that, right?
You can't do that.
But I thought how do we achieve
this in another way?
If a baby is premature,
will it have any kind of
different visual abilities?
I had a grant that was studying
newborn babies...
who were premature.
So the logic behind this.
How does it work?
First you have to recruit
healthy babies
and you have to exclude those
that have other issues
like PVL and whatnot.
What are other issues?
Lung problems, brain problems,
those are sometimes the case,
but they are excluded from
this study.
So I took newborn babies that
were born 2 to 8 weeks early.
And I know you think that
8 weeks is quite a lot,
but truly it's not.
If you talk to medical doctors,
you'll find out that most babies
can be born quite early on
and survive just fine.
There'll be
complications, sure,
but 8 weeks is just as doable
as a full-term,
and they can go home within
that week after birth.
So imagine that.
You know, 8 weeks extra
in the dark
as opposed to 8 weeks out
in the world.
I mean, granted they're
not out and about.
They're lying in a crib,
more than likely looking around,
seeing their, you know, colors
and faces and toys.
But do those 8 weeks
give a head start?
So here's an example.
Let's say there's a baby that's
expected to be due...
expected to be due, yeah,
in 3 months.
So the biological plan says
3 more months,
but they were born a couple
months early.
So technically, they're 5 months
at this point.
They have different ages,
essentially.
Does that make sense how
that's done?
So that baby in the middle
is more like which?
So I was testing
2 competing hypotheses.
If there's a baby that
was 3 months early,
does that give it extra time
out in the world at a benefit
as opposed to a baby that has
3 extra months in the womb?
So we were able to test
hypotheses
about the ages of babies,
as far as when they were born,
if it was early, and if they
were more time out in the world
and if that had any gain
for them.
So I tested roughly 50 babies.
I did. 150 babies,
with an assistant
who was in my lab.
Now, this is what we tested.
We looked at the sensitivity
to dark and light colors.
That's just the general gist
of it.
It's color-based.
You could think of it that way.
We'll keep it simple.
Now, I have, you know, quite
a few graphs that show...
there are lines over age
and whatnot,
but we'll keep that out of
the equation for now.
Take my word for it. Ha ha!
This is much more simple to
think about it this way.
This formula on the bottom.
So that result means that
if a baby were to be born
8 weeks premature,
they do have a gain.
They will have an accelerated
visual development
by about 4 weeks.
So it's 8 over 2, like
the equation says up here.
Pretty interesting, no?
It's really cool work for me.
Any questions on this?
You're more than welcome to.
I was really, really excited
about this work.
I was able to submit
more grants.
You know, my grant was starting
to wind down,
coming to the end of our cycle,
so I want to say I submitted
1, 2, 3 that were denied.
Didn't receive funding for
any of those.
I want to say that I was maybe
3 months solid
of just grant writing,
and I got nothing.
Failed.
So where do I go from here?
I would much rather be put
in boiling water
than teach, personally.
I had to teach.
And I got to say,
I was very--I have a lot of
insecurities.
I do. I can present about
this now,
but way back when, uh-uh.
I was not confident.
I was not able to present.
I wasn't comfortable
in my speech.
I did not think that students
would respect me.
I didn't think that
the university
would provide me interpreters,
which I had quite a fight for.
Um...
At the end of the day, though,
I did teach.
For roughly a year, I was able
to teach 4 different classes
from scratch.
And I have to say, I really do
appreciate
that I didn't have funding
because I'm a pretty good
teacher.
Can I say that?
I have to say I like it. I do.
I'm not bragging, no.
[Laughter]
It was a hard class.
Peter, are you--or anyone--
does anyone--Peter?
Woman: I know them. Ha ha!
Rain: Is anyone familiar...
with Matt Trappler's book?
Oy. I know. I saw that sigh.
It's--it's a tough read.
It's really more at
the graduate level,
but I did use this book.
So even though--and I'm sure
that, you know,
students would often
say things like
they can give me yes or no
recommendations
and they can recommend teachers
and they can also add comments.
So they would just tell me in
these comments for these evals
that they hated the book,
but I got hundreds across
the board for everything else.
It was the book they weren't
too keen on.
And then I got money. Cha-ching!
It's interesting for me now--
well, what did you learn from
my story?
I studied deaf adults.
I learned about psychophysics.
I conducted psychophysics
with blind infants.
And from there, I started
moving into--
well, moving back to San Diego,
I moved back to atypical--
or to typical babies.
So what was next?
What do you think the connection
is for me?
Deaf and babies together, yeah.
Deaf babies.
So, of course, that's the next
step in my progression.
So I went ahead and wrote
a grant.
I was the PI and Karen Dobkins
was the co-PI,
so flip the tables a little.
But we were able to study
deaf children.
We did something that's kind of
not something
that we knew or were confident
in doing.
We had 2 agencies,
and we bidded with NSF and NIH.
You're not allowed to accept
both funding at the same time--
funding from both institutes
at the same time,
but we did submit.
And there was an interesting
problem.
Do you want to guess
what happened?
Yeah, they both wanted
to give us money
and I'm like,
"Shit, what do we do?"
So we had to tell one no
and one yes.
So we went ahead and explained.
I remember that Karen and I
had interpreters in our office.
And we got on the phone with--
well, I had hired an interpreter
specifically for this call.
So they sat with me while Karen
was on the speaker phone.
And she spoke to both.
It was called the PO
or Program Officer,
for each of these institutes.
And it felt almost like we were
negotiating with them
because they both wanted
to fund us.
So we had to kind of
split things
as far as our aims were
concerned.
Now...we thought that we would
end up with more money,
but that was not the case.
We actually ended up
with less money.
Yeah, I know. It's odd.
Well, and this was because
the NIH is huge
and the NSF is smaller.
So the rules say you gotta
find a logical way
to split the science, really.
It's not kind of like, "Oh, I'm
gonna carve this aim here
"and half of that aim
over there."
No, no, no. It's got to be nice,
clear, clean and cut.
So we would have half of our
work with one agency
and half of our work
with the other.
And the aims essentially were
just evenly divided, 2 and 2.
And guess what happened.
The big place, the NIH,
cut in half
was a pretty severe cut.
I thought someone would explain
that to me
that it wasn't going to be
half and half of the big amount.
Instead I got half of one
and half of something else.
So all along, I was in the
Infant and Visual Lab,
which we changed the name
because we are now the MEP Lab--
the Mind, Experience and
Perception Lab,
which is what I like and what
we went with.
And this is my son again
back in the lab.
He's a subject here.
He hates it. He does not care
for science at all.
I don't know, he's just not
inspired by me, I don't know.
I'm just gonna touch briefly
on this.
We do not do brain imaging,
but we do model our tests
based on what we are aware of
regarding the brain from
other people.
So we know that, you know,
this part of the brain processes
function "x"
and, you know, that other part
of the brain
processes function "y."
But our tests are more focused
on tapping object "a"
or, you know, tapping key "b."
So it's more like that
as opposed to actual imaging.
Lots of work coming up with
different metrics
as well as perceptional measures
that we've been using.
We call it a battery of tests,
really.
And we use Dr. Hauser's ASL
comprehension test
for the adult subjects,
and we have another test
that's similar
that we employ with children.
So that's me, and I'm testing
twins here.
I was allowed from mom
to show these pictures,
so she signed off on
the releases.
These are twin boys that
are implanted,
and they're just
the sweetest thing.
Heh. Cute, right?
They don't speak much.
They are implanted.
But I want to say that
they are maybe 2,
so there's not a whole lot of
talking going on yet,
but we'll keep going.
And this is more eye-tracking
equipment.
It's like a mean IQ test.
So you can tell them apart
because of the headbands
that they wear.
So they help keep
the implants on
and you can tell them apart.
So future work.
I want to know how babies
can identify language.
When they see a word like
if a baby were to see that,
all that futzing around.
We don't call it language.
It's not necessarily a word
in sign language.
But babies are able to discern
that difference
based on what they hear maybe
auditorily
and can tell what's garbled
and what's language.
It's the idea that internally
we do have language sensitivity
universally
and that humans are designed
in a way
to actually identify language
and take to it.
That's why babies are so good
at learning language.
We're interested in learning
more about how babies
can truly recognize the signals
within their environment
that dictate true language
and not.
So I'm testing babies again.
They aren't deaf.
They are either children
of deaf adults
who use sign language,
that have deaf parents,
and they are hearing babies,
and then those babies that don't
have any exposure
to signed language.
So what I do is compare
those two
and figure out how we can
identify language,
how early can you identify that
in a child
if a language is truly their
first language or not?
And with CODA children,
I'm able to identify this
at about 6 months, which is just
really outstanding.
We're gonna end with this nice
metaphor or an idiom.
People say that my life
is like an open book,
and I kind of identify
with that.
The funny thing is when I was,
you know, in graduate school
and studying a certain topic,
after that I found myself
in a new place
and I had to say good-bye
to that first topic.
And then after I finished up
that paper,
I found a new topic, and I had
to say good-bye.
And it felt rude.
I had to stop and go on to
teaching after research
and giving up all these
different things
and hopping all over the place.
But that was not the case.
So before I say that
that was wrong,
I want to explain my metaphor.
I expected that my life to be,
you know, like graduate school.
Like, all right, after I finish
that book,
I can hang it back up
on my shelf.
And then after I read for my--
I mean, you don't really
re-read, right?
Once you've read something,
you just kind of throw it
back up on the shelf.
So I closed my Ph.D.,
closed my post-doc,
and just started to fill up
my own personal library.
But that's not the case.
You don't think about your life
as a bunch of books.
Instead, these are chapters
because it's a cohesive journey
that guides you
from your adolescence,
where I certainly didn't
identify anything like that.
But it's been a beautiful
part of my life to slowly
watch all of these different
aspects come into play
and go back and think about
how everything truly is related.
So every aspect of my life
has been a chapter,
not its own book.
So full circle.
Talking about those seas again.
What can I pass on to you?
I suggest that you just
try to do it.
Don't think too much about it,
just do it.
That's why, you know, I was
saying that my path
is very direct.
It's not that I was hopping
all over the place.
I kind of just found myself
working and moving forward
and not worrying about
what had happened,
but focusing on what I could
make happen.
Oh, and back to that butter up.
Kind of like brown-nosing.
You have to show enthusiasm
to your seniors,
especially mentors.
You need to exhibit that kind
of enthusiasm for their work.
I don't care if you fake it.
You have to show it.
And if it's not fake, you know,
enjoy it,
but fake it if you have to.
The best way if you're a really
shy person like me
is to use the emails.
Emails are the best.
Just opening with a nice,
"Hello, I'm a student
"that is interested in working
with you.
"Could I visit during
office hours?"
It's a great ice breaker,
but you need to show that
enthusiasm.
And work hard.
