Development of Temporal Visual Selective Attention in Deaf Children

人脑非常擅长整合来自不同感官的信息，以创造丰富的世界表征。例如，了解狗是什么不仅涉及狗的外表和行为，还包括它的声音、感觉甚至气味。因此，一种感觉，如听觉，可以对另一种感觉，如视觉，产生影响。先前的研究表明，这就是为什么聋哑儿童经常难以处理某些类型的视觉信息。然而，这可能不是由于缺乏听力对视力的直接影响。失聪儿童经常延迟接触语言，这也可能影响儿童的视觉处理能力的发展。语言接触和听觉剥夺的影响可以通过研究接触到一种自然视觉语言--美国手语的聋哑儿童来解决。该项目将提供有关听力和语言在发育过程中如何影响视力的信息，也将提供有关聋哑儿童如何了解他们周围世界的信息。对150名6-13岁的聋哑儿童进行纵向跟踪，他们的听力损失和接触美国手语的情况各不相同。在第一波数据收集中，每个孩子的听力特征、ASL技能和语言背景以及非语言智商都将得到评估。在四波数据收集中的每一波，都将测量它们处理连续视觉信息流的能力。适度分析将被用来确定听力损失、自然语言暴露和技能对这种视觉处理能力发展的影响。通过这样做，研究人员将能够测试关于聋儿视觉序列处理缺陷基础的相互竞争的假说。

The human brain is remarkably adept at integrating information from the different senses to create rich representations of the world. For example, understanding what a dog is can involve information not only about how the dog looks and acts, but also about how it sounds, feels, and even smells. Consequently, one sense, such as hearing, can exert an influence on processing in another, such as vision. There has been some suggestion from prior research that this is why deaf children often struggle to process some types of visual information. However, this may not be due to a direct effect of lack of hearing on vision. Deaf children often have delayed exposure to language, which may also influence how children's visual processing develops. The effects of language exposure and auditory deprivation can be disentangled by studying deaf children who are exposed to a natural visual language - American Sign Language. This project will provide information about how hearing and language influence vision during development, and will also provide information about how deaf children come to learn about the world around them.One hundred and fifty deaf children aged 6-13 years, who vary in both their hearing loss and their exposure to American Sign Language, will be followed longitudinally for 2-3 years. During the first wave of data collection, each child's audiological profile, ASL skills and language background, and nonverbal IQ will be assessed. At each of four waves of data collection, their ability to process sequential streams of visual information will be measured. Moderation analyses will be used to determine the effects of hearing loss and natural language exposure and skill on the development of this visual processing ability. In doing so, the researchers will be able to test competing hypotheses about the basis for visual sequence processing deficits in deaf children.