Dual Deficits in Visual Working Memory Capacity and Filtering Efficiency in Deaf College Students under Higher Load

Chen Ying; Zhou Li; Wang Yan; Pan Qianqian; Liang Yongsheng; Yang Fuyi

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250504

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2025, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (5) : 1062-1075. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250504

General Psychology, Experimental Psychology & Ergonomics

Dual Deficits in Visual Working Memory Capacity and Filtering Efficiency in Deaf College Students under Higher Load

Chen Ying¹, Zhou Li², Wang Yan³, Pan Qianqian⁴, Liang Yongsheng⁵, Yang Fuyi⁶

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Abstract

More than 80% of human information comes through the visual channel. Visual working memory serves as a resource-limited cognitive system specialized in temporarily storing and processing visual information. Attention involves the selection and allocation of information, with which controlling and regulating the flexible allocation of cognitive resources during information processing. From the perspective of individual differences, research has shown that the performance differences in visual working memory capacity among groups and individuals within groups, which can predict higher cognitive functions such as fluid intelligence and problem-solving, may be related to the efficiency of attention selection, such as filtering out irrelevant information during the encoding.
Early sensory deprivation, such as hearing loss, can profoundly alter brain structure and function. For individuals with profound hearing loss, vision becomes a primary modality for environmental interaction and information acquisition.This population thus offers critical insights into plasticity mechanisms driven by perceptual deprivation. Additionally, prolonged engagement with visual language (e.g., sign language, lip-reading) may exhibit specialized adaptations in visual processing. However, non-verbal visual processing in individuals with hearing loss has received limited scholarly attention. Furthermore, existing empirical evidence remains inconclusive as to whether their visual functions are superior to those of hearing individuals (Compensation Theory), impaired (Deficit Theory), or selectively modulated by environmental demands (Integration Theory). Moreover, little research has focused on the interaction between visual working memory and visual attention between individuals with and without hearing loss. Consequently, whether impairments in VWM capacity and its underlying attention mechanisms(i.e., filtering efficiency) exist in the deaf remain unclear to date.
Using a change detection paradigm, this study examined differences in visual working memory (VWM) capacity and irrelevant stimulus filtering efficiency between deaf and hearing college students. Experiment 1 demonstrated that while the deaf group showed generally reduced VWM capacity, pronounced deficits were observed exclusively under high cognitive load. In Experiment 2, both groups exhibited impaired filtering of task-irrelevant stimuli during encoding, with VWM capacity strongly linked to filtering efficiency. Critically, the deaf group displayed significantly weaker filtering efficiency, and their susceptibility to irrelevant interference intensified proportionally with task demands. In summary, this study reveals a dual pattern in the visual working memory of deaf college students: while their capacity and filtering efficiency markedly decline under high cognitive load compared to hearing peers, the intrinsic coupling between these two metrics remains conserved. These findings align with the Integration Theory, suggesting that visual processing in hearing loss populations reflects both compensatory plasticity and residual constraints of sensory deprivation.

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deaf college students / VWM / capacity / filtering efficiency / integrated hypothesis

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Chen Ying, Zhou Li, Wang Yan, Pan Qianqian, Liang Yongsheng, Yang Fuyi. Dual Deficits in Visual Working Memory Capacity and Filtering Efficiency in Deaf College Students under Higher Load[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2025, 48(5): 1062-1075 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250504

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