Assessing the contribution of lexical quality variables to skilled reading in profoundly deaf adults

低文化水平是一个重大的社会问题，因为阅读能力差与许多负面结果有关，包括学术和就业机会不足，获取公共信息的机会有限，公民参与减少。虽然口语语音缺陷是聋人和有阅读困难的正常人的共同特征，但语音知识是否对聋人的阅读成功至关重要，目前尚不清楚，还存在争议。至关重要的是，我们也不知道聋人读者是如何弥补语音能力下降的，也不知道听力正常的成年人和读写能力低下的聋人是否表现出相似的阅读模式。这个项目既针对高技能的聋人和听力正常的读者，也针对读写能力低的读者，目的是将反映阅读能力低下（包括聋人和听力正常的人群）的普遍影响的阅读模式与仅针对聋人读者的阅读模式区分开来。通过研究深度聋人的阅读过程，该项目将为阅读系统如何适应不同类型的体验（例如，耳聋导致的声音获取减少，视觉注意力的变化）提供新的见解。本项目利用阅读的“三角模型”和词汇质量假说来研究词汇的语音、正字法和语义属性（即词汇质量变量）的不同经验和知识如何影响聋人和听力健全的成年人的阅读过程。该项目利用适合聋人的评估系统（测量阅读技能和词汇质量变量）、分层回归模型、心理语言学范式（例如，转置字母操作、语义分类）和眼动追踪方法来表征阅读能力匹配的聋人和听力正常的成年人的单词和句子级阅读过程。此外，该项目还测试了“文字处理效率假说”，该假说认为，在阅读句子时，聋人读者在处理单词（和即将出现的单词）方面比听力正常的读者“更有效”，因为他们可以在旁中央凹视觉（眼睛注视的地方之外）掌握更多信息；这些差异的产生是因为耳聋增强了对视觉外围的注意。总体而言，该项目旨在更好地了解阅读系统的灵活性，这将有助于优化聋人和听力健全学生的识字教育。最后，首席研究员致力于通过提供一个对聋哑学生开放的研究环境和促进他们进入STEM领域的培训来改善聋哑学生的机会。

Low literacy levels are a significant societal concern because poor reading ability is associated with many negative outcomes, including poor academic and employment opportunities, limited access to public information, and reduced civic engagement. Although deficits in spoken language phonology are characteristic of both deaf and hearing people with reading difficulties, whether phonological knowledge is critical to reading success for deaf individuals is currently not known and under debate. Crucially, it is also unknown how deaf readers compensate for reduced phonological abilities or whether hearing and deaf adults with low literacy skills exhibit similar reading patterns. This project targets both highly skilled deaf and hearing readers, as well as those with low literacy skills, in order to tease apart reading patterns that reflect general effects of poor reading ability (across both deaf and hearing populations) from those that are specific only to deaf readers. By studying reading processes in profoundly deaf people, this project will provide novel insight into how the reading system adapts to different types of experiences (e.g., reduced access to sound, changes in visual attention due to deafness). This project draws on the "triangle model" of reading and the Lexical Quality Hypothesis to examine how distinct experience with and knowledge of the phonological, orthographic, and semantic properties of words (i.e., lexical quality variables) impact reading processes for deaf and hearing adults. The project utilizes a deaf-appropriate assessment battery (measuring reading skill and lexical quality variables), hierarchical regression modeling, psycholinguistic paradigms (e.g., transposed letter manipulations; semantic categorization), and eye tracking methods to characterize word- and sentence-level reading processes for deaf and hearing adults who are matched on reading ability. In addition, this project tests the Word Processing Efficiency hypothesis, which proposes that deaf readers are "more efficient" than hearing readers at processing words (and upcoming words) when reading sentences because they can grasp more information in parafoveal vision (outside of where your eyes are fixating); these differences arise because deafness enhances attention to the periphery of vision. Overall, this project is designed to provide a better understanding of the flexibility of the reading system which will help to optimize literacy education for deaf and hearing students. Finally, the principal investigator is committed to improving opportunities for deaf students by providing a research environment that is accessible to them and training that facilitates entrance into STEM fields.