TY - JOUR
T1 - Auditory deprivation affects biases of visuospatial attention as measured by line bisection
AU - Cattaneo, Zaira
AU - Lega, Carlotta
AU - Cecchetto, Carlo
AU - Papagno, Costanza
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - In this study, we investigated whether early deafness affects the typical pattern of hemispheric lateralization [i.e., right hemisphere (RH) dominance] in the control of spatial attention. To this aim, deaf signers, deaf non-signers, hearing signers, and hearing non-signers were required to bisect a series of centrally presented visual lines. The directional bisection bias was found to be significantly different between hearing and deaf participants, irrespective of sign language use. Hearing participants (both signers and non-signers) showed a consistent leftward bias, reflecting RH dominance. Conversely, we observed no evidence of a clear directional bias in deaf signers or non-signers (deaf participants overall showing a non-significant tendency to deviate rightward), suggesting that deafness may be associated to a more bilateral hemispheric engagement in visuospatial tasks.
AB - In this study, we investigated whether early deafness affects the typical pattern of hemispheric lateralization [i.e., right hemisphere (RH) dominance] in the control of spatial attention. To this aim, deaf signers, deaf non-signers, hearing signers, and hearing non-signers were required to bisect a series of centrally presented visual lines. The directional bisection bias was found to be significantly different between hearing and deaf participants, irrespective of sign language use. Hearing participants (both signers and non-signers) showed a consistent leftward bias, reflecting RH dominance. Conversely, we observed no evidence of a clear directional bias in deaf signers or non-signers (deaf participants overall showing a non-significant tendency to deviate rightward), suggesting that deafness may be associated to a more bilateral hemispheric engagement in visuospatial tasks.
KW - Deaf
KW - Hemispheres
KW - Lateralization
KW - Line bisection
KW - Pseudoneglect
KW - Sign language
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U2 - 10.1007/s00221-014-3960-7
DO - 10.1007/s00221-014-3960-7
M3 - Article
C2 - 24770861
AN - SCOPUS:84906318560
VL - 232
SP - 2767
EP - 2773
JO - Experimental Brain Research
JF - Experimental Brain Research
SN - 0014-4819
IS - 9
ER -