Reduced neural selectivity for mental states in deaf children with delayed exposure to sign language

摘要

Proportion correct on linguistic (L (ASL); left) and minimally linguistic (ML; right) ToM tasks ( -axis) by age (top row; -axis) or by -scored age of ASL onset (middle row; -axis). scores are used for de-identification of data. Native signers (  = 16, L task;  = 21, ML task) are shown in blue; delayed signers (  = 12 (both tasks)) are shown in orange. For the linguistic task, gray dots show 3–12 year-old hearing participants who completed an analogous task in English in other studies (  = 137). Gray shading (top row) shows the 95% confidence level interval for a linear regression predicting the effect of age on ToM performance, per ASL signing group. Asterisk (middle left) indicates a significant effect of age of ASL onset on linguistic ToM performance (  = −0.54,  = −3.4, 95% CI = [−0.86, −0.21],  = 0.002; linear regression controlling for age). Standard boxplots of proportion correct on linguistic and minimally linguistic ToM tasks for native (blue;  = 16, L task;  = 21, ML task) and delayed (orange,  = 12, both tasks) signers ( -axis) by question category ( -axis; FB refers to false-belief items). Center line indicates median, box reflects interquartile range, whiskers show first quartile/third quartile −/+ 1.5*IQR, means are shown with black diamonds, and individual data points are shown with blue (NS) and orange (DS) circles. Source data are provided as a Source Data file and at .