Research is reported which investigated the ability of 4-month-old hearing infants to discriminate between gestures, derived from American Sign Language (ASL), that differ solely in terms of contrasts along underlying movement dimensions. Using an habituation–dishabituation task, it is shown that young infants can make such discriminations for global movement contrasts as well as contrasts along a single movement dimension. Thus, at four months, infants possess certain prerequisite perceptual abilities for the analysis of the signs of a visually specified language. Partial failure to dishabituate to another movement contrast, however, suggests that readiness to utilize the information in gestural events may vary depending on the movement in question. Results are contrasted to infant speech perception findings and implications for further research in the development of sign perception are discussed.