Processing of visual-action codes by deaf and hearing children: Coding orientation or M-capacity?

Abstract

It was proposed that performance on cognitive tasks is dependent on compatibility of task demands with a coding orientation arising from a particular learning history. Deaf children's early dependence on visual stimuli and the use of gesture for communication may result in a visual-action coding orientation that is highly compatible with the demands of certain tasks, such as Pascual-Leone's (1970) compound stimulus visual information (CSVI) task. The prediction followed that deaf children would be superior to hearing children on the CSVI task. The CSVI task was devised by Pascual-Leone as a measure of M-capacity, a central processing space that, according to his developmental model, increases in integer steps with progression through Piagetian stages. The model predicts that M-capacity, as measured by the CSVI task, will be constant across populations irrespective of any differences in their learning histories. The competing predictions were tested in an experiment in which deaf and hearing children, matched on age, sex, and nonverbal reasoning, were given a vocabulary test and the CSVI task. The coding orientation hypothesis was supported by the finding that deaf children had lower vocabulary scores but outperformed hearing children on the CSVI task.