Effects of exogenous and endogenous cues on attentional orienting in deaf adults

Abstract

Adults who are deaf have been shown to have better visual attentional orienting than those with typical hearing, especially when the target is located in the periphery of the visual field. However, most studies in this population have assessed exogenous visual attention orienting (bottom-up processing of external cues) rather than endogenous visual attention orienting (top-down processing of internal cues). We used a target detection task to assess both types of visual attention orienting. A modified cue-target paradigm was adopted to assess the facilitation effects of exogenous and endogenous cues during short and long inter-stimulus intervals (ISI), using a 2 (Group: deaf/typically hearing) * 2 (Location: central/peripheral) * 2 (Cue Type: exogenous/endogenous) mixed factorial design. ANOVAs showed that both exogenous cues and endogenous cues can facilitate deaf adults’ visual attentional orienting, and the facilitation effect of exogenous cues on attention orienting was significantly stronger for deaf participants than hearing participants. When the ISI was long, the effect was significantly stronger when the exogenous cue appeared in the periphery of the visual field. In the periphery, deaf adults benefited most from exogenous cues, whereas hearing adults benefited most from endogenous cues. The results suggest that not only exogenous cues but also endogenous cues can facilitate deaf adults’ visual attentional orienting. However, the effect of exogenous cues appears to be greater, especially when the stimulus appears in the peripheral visual field.

Research of visual attention networks in deaf individuals: a systematic review

“…Endogenous orienting does not differ between deaf and typical hearing adults, whether measured by visual search (Heimler et al, 2015a) or spatial orienting paradigms using central cues (Heimler et al, 2015b;Bonmassar et al, 2021;Li et al, 2022). One explanation for this result is that endogenous orienting of attention requires voluntary control of attention (topdown), while exogenous attention is an involuntary mechanism (bottom-up), as some results indicated that deaf individuals could have worse executive control, possibly explaining the lack of differences in these tasks (Li et al, 2022). However, as we have found in this review, deficits in executive control are not common in adults or native signers, contrary to the results found in orienting.…”

“…The mechanisms governing orienting of attention or eye movements have been shown to be more dependent on endogenous attention, which could explain why the differences between deaf and full hearing individuals do not extend to the results of these tasks (Zangrossi et al, 2021;Celli et al, 2022). Endogenous orienting does not differ between deaf and typical hearing adults, whether measured by visual search (Heimler et al, 2015a) or spatial orienting paradigms using central cues (Heimler et al, 2015b;Bonmassar et al, 2021;Li et al, 2022). One explanation for this result is that endogenous orienting of attention requires voluntary control of attention (topdown), while exogenous attention is an involuntary mechanism (bottom-up), as some results indicated that deaf individuals could have worse executive control, possibly explaining the lack of differences in these tasks (Li et al, 2022).…”

“…However, studies that measured overt attention with saccadic movement found no facilitation of exogenous orienting with this measure (Bottari et al, 2012;Prasad et al, 2015;Heimler et al, 2015a;Jayaraman et al, 2016). The five studies that measured endogenous orienting found no differences between deaf and full-hearing adults (Bottari et al, 2008;Heimler et al, 2015a,b;Bonmassar et al, 2021;Li et al, 2022).…”

“…Specifically, Kronenberger et al (2013) The only study that measured phasic alerting with alerting cues found an advantage in deaf adults (Prasad et al, 2022). Deaf adults also seem to have advantages in covert exogenous orienting (Xingjuan et al, 2011;Brazão et al, 2021;Li et al, 2022;Prasad et al, 2022). However, studies that measured overt attention with saccadic movement found no facilitation of exogenous orienting with this measure (Bottari et al, 2012;Prasad et al, 2015;Heimler et al, 2015a;Jayaraman et al, 2016).…”