The Role of Working Memory in Deaf Adults' Visual Word Recognition: Evidence From Dual-Task Paradigm

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience of Hearing
• Reading Science

Background:

• Working memory (WM) is essential for reading comprehension.
• The role of WM in reading for deaf individuals remains unclear, with limited correlational evidence.
• Previous research lacks real-time investigation into WM's influence on lexical processing in deaf adults.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the influence of working memory (WM) on real-time lexical processing in deaf adults.
• To determine if this influence varies across different WM domains, specifically verbal and visuospatial WM.
• To compare the WM-dependent word recognition processes between deaf adults and individuals with typical hearing.

Main Methods:

• A dual-task paradigm was utilized to assess word recognition under varying WM loads.
• Experiment 1 examined the effect of verbal WM load on visual word recognition.
• Experiment 2 investigated the impact of visuospatial WM load on visual word recognition.
• Three groups participated: individuals with hearing loss, age-matched controls, and reading ability-matched controls.

Main Results:

• Deaf individuals exhibited significantly slower word recognition speeds under dual-task conditions compared to baseline.
• The interference effect from WM was significantly stronger in the hearing loss group than in control groups.
• Both verbal and visuospatial WM loads negatively impacted word recognition performance in deaf participants.

Conclusions:

• Visual word recognition in individuals with hearing loss is more dependent on working memory (WM) than in typical hearing individuals.
• Both verbal and visuospatial WM domains play a significant role in the real-time lexical processing of deaf adults.
• These findings underscore the critical role of WM in reading for deaf populations and suggest potential targets for intervention.