measuring reaction times in sign language naming experiments

[James T. Myers]

I haven't been on this list long enough to know
whether or not this question has already been
addressed, so forgive the repetition if it has.

I'm planning to conduct psycholinguistic experiments
on Taiwan Sign Language involving a naming task
-- e.g. the participants see either a picture or
a Chinese word on a computer screen, and they
have to produce the appropriate TSL sign.  I want
to measure the response time, i.e. the duration between
the onset of the visual display and the onset of signing,
e.g. lifting the hands up from some resting position.

Has anybody done anything like this before?  I want
to be able to cite some previous work like this,
and I also want to get ideas on the best way to
do it technically.  The best idea I've come across
so far was attributed to Ursula Bellugi (who apparently
has not published any study using it):  have the
signers begin with their hands resting on a button
(on a specially-made button box, or just on regular
keyboard keys), and then when they begin to sign
the time at which they lift the hands can be measured.
One disadvantage is that it assumes that signers
will always lift the same hand first, or both hands
at the same time.

Comments of all sorts most welcome, and I'll post
a summary.

James Myers
Graduate Institute of Linguistics
National Chung Cheng University
Min-Hsiung, Chia-Yi  621
TAIWAN, ROC
Email:  lngmyers at ccunix.ccu.edu.tw
Web:    http://www.ccunix.ccu.edu.tw/~lngmyers/
Phone:  886-5-242-8251
Fax:    886-5-272-1654