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Auditory deprivation affects biases of visuospatial attention as measured by line bisection

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Abstract

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.

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Notes

  1. In Posner cueing paradigms, a cue is used to draw participants' attention to a location in space (usually to the left or to the right of the cue) where the target may appear (Posner 1980). Traditionally, the Posner task has been used to investigate attentional phenomena dependent on the location of the target relative to the cue. However, since stimuli usually appear either in the left or right visual field, the task has also been employed to measure hemispheric imbalance.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Martina Gerosa, Carlo Geraci, and Stefano Zanoletti for their help in recruiting participants, and the ENS of Bergamo and Monza for their warm hospitality. We also thank Carlo Toneatto for technical support, Alice Rinaldi, Carlo Marchelli, and Matteo Tagliaferri for their precious help in data collection, and Susan Campbell for editing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    Zaira Cattaneo, Carlotta Lega, Carlo Cecchetto & Costanza Papagno

  2. Brain Connectivity Center, National Neurological Institute C. Mondino, Pavia, Italy

    Zaira Cattaneo

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  1. Zaira Cattaneo
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  2. Carlotta Lega
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  3. Carlo Cecchetto
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  4. Costanza Papagno
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Correspondence to Zaira Cattaneo.

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Cattaneo, Z., Lega, C., Cecchetto, C. et al. Auditory deprivation affects biases of visuospatial attention as measured by line bisection. Exp Brain Res 232, 2767–2773 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-3960-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-3960-7

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