title: Effect of Exogenous Cues on Covert Spatial Orienting in Deaf and Normal Hearing Individuals.
abstract: Deaf individuals have been known to process visual stimuli better at the periphery compared to the normal hearing population. However, very few studies have examined attention orienting in the oculomotor domain in the deaf, particularly when targets appear at variable eccentricity. In this study, we examined if the visual perceptual processing advantage reported in the deaf people also modulates spatial attentional orienting with eye movement responses. We used a spatial cueing task with cued and uncued targets that appeared at two different eccentricities and explored attentional facilitation and inhibition. We elicited both a saccadic and a manual response. The deaf showed a higher cueing effect for the ocular responses than the normal hearing participants. However, there was no group difference for the manual responses. There was also higher facilitation at the periphery for both saccadic and manual responses, irrespective of groups. These results suggest that, owing to their superior visual processing ability, the deaf may orient attention faster to targets. We discuss the results in terms of previous studies on cueing and attentional orienting in deaf.
authors.affiliation: Center for Neural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India.
authors.forename: Seema Gorur
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Prasad
authors.affiliation: AliYavar Jung National Institute for the Hearing Handicapped, Secunderabad, India.
authors.forename: Gouri Shanker
authors.initials: GS
authors.lastname: Patil
authors.affiliation: Center for Neural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India.
authors.forename: Ramesh Kumar
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Mishra
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D003638:Deafness / Q000151:congenital / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005584:Fovea Centralis; D005868:Gestures; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time; D012438:Saccades; D013037:Spatial Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult