Dataset Information

Is visual selective attention in deaf individuals enhanced or deficient? The case of the useful field of view.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Early deafness leads to enhanced attention in the visual periphery. Yet, whether this enhancement confers advantages in everyday life remains unknown, as deaf individuals have been shown to be more distracted by irrelevant information in the periphery than their hearing peers. Here, we show that, in a complex attentional task, a performance advantage results for deaf individuals.

Methodology/principal findings

We employed the Useful Field of View (UFOV) which requires central target identification concurrent with peripheral target localization in the presence of distractors - a divided, selective attention task. First, the comparison of deaf and hearing adults with or without sign language skills establishes that deafness and not sign language use drives UFOV enhancement. Second, UFOV performance was enhanced in deaf children, but only after 11 years of age.

Conclusions/significance

This work demonstrates that, following early auditory deprivation, visual attention resources toward the periphery slowly get augmented to eventually result in a clear behavioral advantage by pre-adolescence on a selective visual attention task.

SUBMITTER: Dye MW

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2680667 | biostudies-literature | 2009 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Is visual selective attention in deaf individuals enhanced or deficient? The case of the useful field of view.

Dye Matthew W G MW Hauser Peter C PC Bavelier Daphne D

PloS one 20090520 5

<h4>Background</h4>Early deafness leads to enhanced attention in the visual periphery. Yet, whether this enhancement confers advantages in everyday life remains unknown, as deaf individuals have been shown to be more distracted by irrelevant information in the periphery than their hearing peers. Here, we show that, in a complex attentional task, a performance advantage results for deaf individuals.<h4>Methodology/principal findings</h4>We employed the Useful Field of View (UFOV) which requires c ...[more]

PMID: 19462009

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundPrevious research has been designed to study the effect of hearing loss on supra-second duration estimation in the visual channel and position effect of visual abilities among deaf populations. The current study aimed to investigate the sub-second duration perception of different visual fields in profoundly deaf individuals.MethodsA total of 16 profoundly deaf undergraduates and 16 hearing undergraduates completed a visual duration bisection task in which participants made judgments about whether a series of probe durations that were linearly spaced from 200 ms to 800 ms at 100 ms intervals were more similar to a standard short duration (200 ms) or a standard long duration (800 ms). The probe stimuli were presented in the center, left, or right of the screen. A repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) with a between-participants factor of group and a within-participants factor of position, and a one-sample t-test were conducted.ResultsThe Weber ratio (WR) values of deaf participants were significantly higher than those of hearing participants, regardless of the presented positions of the visual stimulus. The bisection point (BP) value of deaf participants was significantly lower than 500 ms (average mean of 200/800 ms) and the BP value of hearing participants did not significantly differ from 500 ms, although the overall difference of BP values between the deaf group and hearing group did not reach significance. For deaf participants, the BP value in the center condition was significantly lower than 500 ms; however, the difference between the BP value in the left condition and 500 ms did not reach significance, indicating that their duration discrimination accuracy in the left visual field was better than that in the center visual field.ConclusionsHearing loss impaired visual sub-second duration perception, and deaf individuals showed a left visual field advantage of duration discrimination accuracy during the visual duration bisection task.

Dataset Information

Is visual selective attention in deaf individuals enhanced or deficient? The case of the useful field of view.

Background

Methodology/principal findings

Conclusions/significance

Publications

Is visual selective attention in deaf individuals enhanced or deficient? The case of the useful field of view.

Similar Datasets

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