Visual Statistical Learning With Stimuli Presented Sequentially Across Space and Time in Deaf and Hearing Adults

Abstract

This study investigated visual statistical learning (VSL) in 24 deaf signers and 24 hearing non-signers. Previous research with hearing individuals suggests that SL mechanisms support literacy. Our first goal was to assess if VSL was associated with reading ability in deaf individuals, and if this relation was sustained by a link between VSL and sign language skill. Our second goal was to test the Auditory Scaffolding Hypothesis, which makes the prediction that deaf people should be impaired in sequential processing tasks. For the VSL task, we adopted a modified version of the triplet learning paradigm, with stimuli presented sequentially across space and time. Results revealed that measures of sign language skill (sentence comprehension/repetition) did not correlate with VSL scores, possibly due to the sequential nature of our VSL task. Reading comprehension scores (PIAT-R) were a significant predictor of VSL accuracy in hearing but not deaf people. This finding might be due to the sequential nature of the VSL task and to a less salient role of the sequential orthography-to-phonology mapping in deaf readers compared to hearing readers. The two groups did not differ in VSL scores. However when reading ability was taken into account, VSL scores were higher for the deaf group than the hearing group. Overall, this evidence is inconsistent with the Auditory Scaffolding Hypothesis, suggesting that humans can develop efficient sequencing abilities even in the absence of sound.

Implicit learning of non-verbal regularities by deaf children with cochlear implants: An investigation with a dynamic temporal prediction task

“…Our null hypothesis is confirmed by the results, offering no support to the Auditory Scaffolding Hypothesis [18]. Rather, our results are consistent with the growing body of literature finding no implicit learning deficit in deaf children, thus suggesting that implicit learning is not impaired by a lack of auditory stimulation [23][24][25][26][27]. Given that children with cochlear implants scored significantly behind the typically hearing children in the verbal tasks that involved explicit processing and knowledge (verbal rehearsal and verbal elaboration as measured by the digit span task, and language skills by the formulated sentences task), our results suggest that implicit learning is independent of explicit learning and not significantly affected by poor auditory input.…”

“…Studies have suggested that the linguistic variability shown by deaf children might result from a deficit in their implicit learning skills [18,20,21]. However, several studies have presented data that challenge this hypothesis [23][24][25][26][27], thereby creating a vibrant theoretical and methodological debate in this area of research. The main aim of the present study was to investigate the dynamic implicit learning of temporal regularities in cochlear-implanted deaf children.…”

“…In contrast, other studies have found that deaf individuals do not differ from typically hearing people in their implicit learning of regularities [23][24][25][26][27]. The findings from these studies challenge the Auditory Scaffolding Hypothesis and highlight at least two relevant issues: (1) for studies supporting the Auditory Scaffolding Hypothesis, findings of an implicit learning impairment cannot be unequivocally attributed to auditory deprivation; (2) given that not all studies have found an implicit learning impairment in participants with hearing loss, it is essential to investigate the cause(s) of these contradictory results.…”

“…In order to obtain optimal performance in the DTP task, children needed to adjust their motor preparation in terms of response speed. In sum, compared to previous implicit learning tasks that focused on learning the elements that comprise a sequence [20,21,[23][24][25][26][27], here we were interested in investigating whether deaf children are able to learn the temporal structure of a sequence of imperative stimuli and adjust their motor behaviour accordingly. Based on the results obtained by previous studies involving the DTP task [32], we expect that children who are able to learn implicitly the temporal distribution of the stimuli in each block will perform better than children who are not.…”

Early Cognitive Predictors of 9-Year-Old Spoken Language in Children With Mild to Severe Hearing Loss Using Hearing Aids

“…This focus has often been underpinned by a theoretical perspective in which early exposure to sound is seen as vital for the typical development of cognitive abilities that relate to the representation and processing of sequential information, which in turn is associated with language development (Conway et al, 2009, 2011a,b; Pisoni et al, 2016). Although there have been several failures to replicate critical empirical findings cited in support of the theory (e.g., Giustolisi and Emmorey, 2018; Hall et al, 2018; von Koss Torkildsen et al, 2018), evidence for a link between cognitive ability and language outcomes remains.…”