Previous studies with deaf adults reported reduced N170 waveform asymmetry to visual words, a finding attributed to reduced phonological mapping in left-hemisphere temporal regions compared to hearing adults. An open question remains whether this pattern indeed results from reduced phonological processing or from general neurobiological adaptations in visual processing of deaf individuals. Deaf ASL signers and hearing nonsigners performed a same-different discrimination task with visually presented words, faces, or cars, while scalp EEG time-locked to the onset of the first item in each pair was recorded. For word recognition, the typical left-lateralized N170 in hearing participants and reduced left-sided asymmetry in deaf participants were replicated. The groups did not differ on word discrimination but better orthographic skill was associated with larger N170 in the right hemisphere only for deaf participants. Face recognition was characterized by unique N170 signatures for both groups, and deaf individuals exhibited superior face discrimination performance. Laterality or discrimination performance effects did not generalize to the N170 responses to cars, confirming that deaf signers are not inherently less lateralized in their electrophysiological responses to words and critically, giving support to the phonological mapping hypothesis. P1 was attenuated for deaf participants compared to the hearing, but in both groups, P1 selectively discriminated between highly learned familiar objects - words and faces versus less familiar objects - cars. The distinct electrophysiological signatures to words and faces reflected experience-driven adaptations to words and faces that do not generalize to object recognition.

中文翻译：

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聋人ASL签名者的单词和面孔的独特N170签名反映了早期视觉处理过程中针对特定体验的适应。

先前对失聪成年人的研究报告称，N170波形与听觉单词的不对称性降低，这一发现归因于与听力正常的成年人相比，左半球颞区的语音映射减少。仍然存在一个悬而未决的问题，这种模式是否确实是由于语音处理减少或聋人视觉处理中的一般神经生物学适应性导致的。聋人ASL签名者和听力不签名者对视觉呈现的单词，面部或汽车执行相同的区分任务，同时记录了头皮脑电图时间锁定在每对第一项开始时的情况。为了进行单词识别，复制了听力参与者中典型的左偏N170和聋人中减少的左侧不对称性。这些小组在单词辨别上没有差异，但是更好的拼写能力与右半球较大的N170有关，仅适用于聋哑参与者。面部识别的特征是两组均具有独特的N170签名，并且聋人表现出优异的面部识别性能。侧向性或辨别性能的影响并没有推广到N170对汽车的反应，这证实了聋人对语言的电生理反应并没有固有地偏于偏侧，并且批评性地支持了语音映射假说。与听力相比，聋哑人的P1衰减，但是在两组中，P1选择性地区分了学习程度高的熟悉对象（文字和面部）与不太熟悉的对象（汽车）。