聴覚障害者の記憶に関する発達的研究

相対的新近度弁別課題を用いて

抄録

It has been widely reported that performance of the deaf differs from performance of the hearing in various memory tasks. However, it has been unclear under what condition the deaf show equal proficient performance, compared with the hearing. So, on the basis of the theory of A. L. Brown (1975), we attempted to identity the condition where memory performance of the deaf might not be deficient. The judgment of relative recency task was given to deaf and hearing subjects. Four groups of subjects took part in this experiment: deaf children, deaf adults, hearing children, and hearing adults.
The procedure was as follows: A long sequence of pictures was presented to the subjects. The sequence consisted of 84 inspection items (72 to-be-tested items and 12 filler items) and 36 test items. Each test item contained two pictures, both of which had occurred previously as inspection items in the sequence. Whenever a test item was presented, the subjects were required to make a judgment on which test pair had been presented later. Two spacing variables were manipulated: Lag and Separation. Lag referred to the number of items intervening between the test item and the most recent inspection item of the test pair and separation referred to the number of items intervening between the first presentation of each of the test pair.
The results might be summarized as follows: First, the analysis of the total correct responses revealed that compared to the results of A. L. Brown (1973), no developmental difference between children and adults was observed, and influence of hearing loss on the judgment task showed no significance, either. Second, separate ANOVA's were conducted on four groups of subjects with Lag and Separation as within-subjects factors. Some main effects for both of Lag and Separation in deaf adults, hearing adults, and hearing children were shown. The interaction between Lag and Separation was also significant in hearing children, but not in the remaining two groups. The analysis for deaf children showed that although there was a main effect for Lag, the main effect for Separation and the interaction between the two factors were not significant. The implications of these findings for deaf memory were discussed.