目前对失明可塑性的行为和神经认知相关的描述刚刚开始纳入言语和言语产生的作用。我们评估了维果茨基/卢里亚的言语调解假设,据此,语音活动可以成为感知复杂刺激的中介工具,具体来说,用于对传达图形信息(触觉图片)的触觉/触觉空间模式进行编码。在触觉图片命名任务中,我们比较了先天性完全失明(CTB)和年龄匹配但视力受损(VI)的儿童的言语表达,其中包括两次重复,再测试,标识。孩子们被指示探索对象的10张触觉示意图(例如,杯子)和身体部位(例如,脸)并提供(没有实验者的反馈)他们的典型名称。儿童的探索和言语被录像并转录成音频段。使用计算机语言分析(CLAN)程序,我们从观察到的言语中提取了几个测量值,包括话语和单词的数量,话语/单词持续时间,探索时间。使用Word2Vec自然语言处理技术,我们根据所提供的名称之间的相对距离来操作语义内容。此外,我们进行了一项观察性内容分析,其中三名法官根据评估言语内容的评分表对言语进行了分类.在所有测量中,结果一致表明,在第一次识别测试中,CTB儿童比VI儿童更快,语义上更精确。然而,VI儿童在重测时达到了与CTB儿童相同的精度和速度。总的来说,VI组的任务更加艰巨。与目前的神经科学文献一致,语音在CTB和VI儿童数据中的突出作用表明,整合大脑网络的潜在跨模式参与,特别是与Broca的网络有关,可能也受到盲文的影响,可以通过Luria假设的中介机制在代偿可塑性中发挥关键作用。
Current accounts of behavioral and neurocognitive correlates of plasticity in blindness are just beginning to incorporate the role of speech and verbal production. We assessed Vygotsky/Luria\'s speech mediation hypothesis, according to which speech activity can become a mediating tool for perception of complex stimuli, specifically, for encoding tactual/haptic spatial patterns which convey pictorial information (haptic pictures). We compared verbalization in congenitally totally blind (CTB) and age-matched sighted but visually impaired (VI) children during a haptic picture naming task which included two repeated, test-retest, identifications. The children were instructed to explore 10 haptic schematic pictures of objects (e.g., cup) and body parts (e.g., face) and provide (without experimenter\'s feedback) their typical name. Children\'s explorations and verbalizations were videorecorded and transcribed into audio segments. Using the Computerized Analysis of Language (CLAN) program, we extracted several measurements from the observed verbalizations, including number of utterances and words, utterance/word duration, and exploration time. Using the Word2Vec natural language processing technique we operationalized semantic content from the relative distances between the names provided. Furthermore, we conducted an observational content analysis in which three judges categorized verbalizations according to a rating scale assessing verbalization content. Results consistently indicated across all measures that the CTB children were faster and semantically more precise than their VI counterparts in the first identification test, however, the VI children reached the same level of precision and speed as the CTB children at retest. Overall, the task was harder for the VI group. Consistent with current neuroscience literature, the prominent role of speech in CTB and VI children\'s data suggests that an underlying cross-modal involvement of integrated brain networks, notably associated with Broca\'s network, likely also influenced by Braille, could play a key role in compensatory plasticity via the mediational mechanism postulated by Luria.