A Comparative Study On Imagery Ability Of 13-15 Year-old Deaf And Hearing Students

Deaf is the group to receive information relying on visual access. Whether they have a better visual image processing ability than the hearing group or not? On the basis of research reviews on individual imagery processing ability and imagery problems of the deaf students,this paper compares the imagery ability of imagery maintenance and imagery rotation of the deaf and hearing students,according to view of imagery processing components proposed by Kosslyn et al.By using experimental research methods,we used self-designed imagery maintenance and imagery rotation experimental materials on 40 deaf students and 40 hearing students of the same age to explore whether the hearing students have better imagery processing ability.In our study, the group differences and gender differences of deaf and hearing students,and the factors would impact on imagery ability were studied. Following conclusions are obtained:Firstly,there is no significant difference of imagery maintenance ability between the group of deaf and hearing students.But, with different gender characteristics:there is no significant gender difference of imagery maintenance ability among hearing students,however, the males has better imagery maintenance ability than the females in the deaf students.Secondly,on the impact factors of imagery maintenance ability,there is difference between the deaf and hearing students:the number of memory and presentation duration of stimulus will affect the test results of imagery maintenance. However, comparing the deaf students, the presentation duration of stimulus plays a promotion role in imagery maintenance ability of the hearing students.Thirdly, among the deaf students,the deaf students with lip-reading hearing aid effect has significantly better imagery maintenance ability than the deaf students with suitable or more than suitable hearing aid effect.Fourthly,there is significant difference on imagery rotation ability between the deaf and hearing students. Rotation ability of the deaf students is lower than the hearing students, and there is gender differences,which the male has better imagery rotation ability than the females.Fifthly, the difficulties of materials (concrete and abstract geo-metric graphics)have a significant effect on imagery rotation ability of the hearing students, but no effect on the deaf students.Finally, among the deaf students,their imagery rotation ability has no concern with their hearing aid effect and hearing disability.