Hearing-impaired more attentive to visual cues: UoH study

Hyderabad: Researchers of the University of Hyderabad (UoH) through their study have shown that congenitally hearing-impaired individuals — born to hearing-impaired parents — show greater attention orienting to visual cues than individuals with normal hearing. Using the Posner cueing, a well-known paradigm in attention research, the authors of the paper ‘Attention capture by brief abrupt-onset […]

Hyderabad: Researchers of the University of Hyderabad (UoH) through their study have shown that congenitally hearing-impaired individuals — born to hearing-impaired parents — show greater attention orienting to visual cues than individuals with normal hearing.

Using the Posner cueing, a well-known paradigm in attention research, the authors of the paper ‘Attention capture by brief abrupt-onset cues in hearing-impaired individuals’ show that suddenly appearing information on the screen capture the attention of hearing-impaired individuals to a greater extent.

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This suggests that hearing impairment makes them more susceptible to sudden information in their environment. Whether this is an advantage or not depends on the type of information and the environment in which the individual finds themselves, the study noted.
“Deafness-induced neuro-plasticity in the brain along with the use of sign language is considered to be the underlying reasons behind such visual processing differences observed. Such findings have implications not only for understanding the deaf visual system better but also for deaf education and rehabilitation,” the researchers said.

The study was conducted by former PhD student Seema Prasad under Prof Mishra’s supervision at Prof. Ramesh Mishra’s Lab, Center for Neural and Cognitive Sciences, School of Medical Sciences, UoH and has been published in the journal ‘Neuropsychologia’. Seema is currently a Humboldt postdoctoral fellow at TU Dresden, Germany. The paper is also co-authored by former intern Vidya Somashekarappa who is currently a PhD student at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

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