A comparison of the receptor and perceptual anticipation performance of hearing and hearing-impaired children

The major purposes of the investigation were to determine if the performance of hearing and hearing-impaired children differed on either receptor or perceptual (i.e., time estimation) anticipation tasks. A tertiary purpose was to determine if a difference existed between the performance of endogenous and exogenous hearing-impaired subjects on either the receptor or perceptual anticipation tasks.

The sample consisted of sixty 8-17 year old hearing-impaired children, 30 males and 30 females, from a school for the deaf. An equivalent number of hearing subjects matched by age and sex were selected from the public schools. A task which required a button-press response to apparent linear motion of 5 mph was used to test receptor anticipation ability. A telegraph-type key connected to a timing device was used to produce time estimations of 5, 10, and 15 second intervals for the perceptual anticipation task.

Raw data for the trials on receptor and perceptual anticipation tasks were converted to mean error scores; then t-tests were used to compare the performance between (a) hearing and hearing impaired and (b) endogenous and exogenous hearing-impaired subjects. Because some of the variances were unequal, a log transformation was calculated on error scores for each subject. Separate analyses of variance were then performed on each of the transformed error scores. A Newman-Keuls post hoc analysis was used to determine where differences existed in the case of a significant time interval effect.

The AE and VE performance of the hearing subjects was significantly better than that of hearing-impaired subjects on the receptor anticipation task. The VE performance of the hearing subjects was significantly better than that of hearing-impaired subjects on the perceptual anticipation tasks. In addition all subjects tended to underestimate 5, 10, and 15 seconds. The performance of endogenous and exogenous hearing-impaired subjects was not significantly different on either the receptor or the perceptual anticipation tasks.