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Poster C in Poster Session C: Wednesday, August 5, 9:30 – 11:15 am, Kimmel Center, Shorin & Rosenthal Rooms

Deafness and Sign Language Experience Uniquely Shift Visual Category Representations

Edan Daniel-Hertz¹, Jesse Gomez¹; ¹Princeton University

Presenter: Edan Daniel-Hertz

The human visual cortex is shaped by experience, but the degree of its adaptability remains uncertain. We investigated how sustained reliance on visual communication, particularly attention to faces and hands in sign language, alters cortical organization in deaf signers, hearing expert signers, and non-signing controls. Using functional MRI and a visual category localizer, we quantified the cortical surface area devoted to processing hands, faces, and places. We find that both deaf and hearing signers show significant expansions in hand representations relative to controls, with distinct spatial distributions across groups. Importantly, we find no change to the size of face-selective regions, suggesting that greater demands on hand processing do not seem to compete with face representations among sign language users. Deaf signers additionally exhibited changes in hemispheric organization on the lateral surface, including reduced rightward lateralization for face processing, and increased rightward bias for place representations. Together, these findings indicate that cortical organization remains adaptable, with experience reshaping visual maps to meet changing demands, likely through competitive interactions that adjust functional boundaries.

Topic Area: Development, Individual Differences & Clinical Populations