The AP says researchers at Boston University are working on "an interactive video project that would allow someone to demonstrate a sign in front of a camera, and have a computer program interpret and explain its meaning," basically a kind of video dictionary of American Sign Language (ASL).
According to The Associated Press, the researchers, who have a three-year, $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, want to put 3,000 ASL signs on video. "The goal is to use the technology to develop a multimedia ASL dictionary to help parents better communicate with deaf children, and to help sign language students."
A number of the researchers and doctoral students involved with the project know ASL, and they hope their video dictionary will assist anyone learning ASL, which is the fourth-most studied foreign language in U.S. colleges.
"I know from my own experience that it's really hard if you see a sign that you don't know, either in a class, in a video you've been assigned to watch, or even if you see it on the street, to figure out what it means," said linguistics professor Carol Neidle, one of the project's lead researchers along with BU's Stan Sclaroff and Vassilis Athitsos at the University of Texas-Arlington.
Native ASL speaker Elizabeth Cassidy, who is hearing but has three deaf siblings and learned to sign before she could speak, is one of four "linguistic consultants" for the project who signs for four cameras, three in front of her and one on her right. Two cameras shoot close-ups from different angles, and one takes a wider shot.
Even as a native ASL speaker, Cassidy says even she sees unfamiliar signs once in a while -- "a project like this is a long time coming."