Finding the balance between capture and control: Oculomotor selection in early deaf adults

Previous work investigating the consequence of bilateral deafness on attentional selection suggests that experience-dependent changes in this population may result in increased automatic processing of stimulus-driven visual information (e.g., saliency). However, adaptive behavior also requires observers to prioritize goal-driven information relevant to the task at hand. In order to investigate whether auditory deprivation alters the balance between these two components of attentional selection, we assessed the time-course of overt visual selection in deaf adults. Twenty early-deaf adults and twenty hearing controls performed an oculomotor additional singleton paradigm. Participants made a speeded eye-movement to a unique orientation target, embedded among homogenous non-targets and one additional unique orientation distractor that was more, equally or less salient than the target. Saliency was manipulated through color. For deaf participants proficiency in sign language was assessed. Overall, results showed that fast initiated saccades were saliency-driven, whereas later initiated saccades were goal-driven. However, deaf participants were overall slower than hearing controls at initiating saccades and also less captured by task-irrelevant salient distractors. The delayed oculomotor behavior of deaf adults was not explained by any of the linguistic measures acquired. Importantly, a multinomial model applied to the data revealed a comparable evolution over time of the underlying saliency- and goal-driven processes between the two groups, confirming the crucial role of saccadic latencies in determining the outcome of visual selection performance. The present findings indicate that prioritization of saliency-driven information is not an unavoidable phenomenon in deafness. Possible neural correlates of the documented behavioral effect are also discussed.

Tipo Pubblicazione: 
Articolo
Author or Creator: 
Heimler, Benedetta
van Zoest, Wieske
Baruffaldi, Francesca
Donk, Mieke
Rinaldi, Pasquale
Caselli, Maria Cristina
Pavani, Francesco
Publisher: 
Academic Press,, New York , Stati Uniti d'America
Source: 
Brain and cognition 96 (2015): 12–27. doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2015.03.001
info:cnr-pdr/source/autori:Heimler, Benedetta; van Zoest, Wieske; Baruffaldi, Francesca; Donk, Mieke; Rinaldi, Pasquale; Caselli, Maria Cristina; Pavani, Francesco; Pavani, Francesco/titolo:Finding the balance between capture and control: Oculomotor selec
Date: 
2015
Resource Identifier: 
http://www.cnr.it/prodotto/i/338247
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2015.03.001
info:doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2015.03.001
http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-84925868414&origin=inward
Language: 
Eng
ISTC Author: 
Ritratto di Pasquale Rinaldi
Real name: