In this study, our objective was to explore the impact of hearing loss on the conceptual system underlying word meaning. We collected perceptual strength norms for 200 Italian words from early deaf individuals with limited or no access to auditory information and compared them to existing norms from hearing individuals. For each word, participants provided perceptual strength ratings for each perceptual modality. Our results revealed a significant reduction of the auditory modality in the norms provided by deaf individuals compared to the hearing population. However, we did not observe an overall decrease in reported perceptual strength. Interestingly, we found a heightened involvement of other sensory modalities accompanied by reduced modality exclusivity in the conceptualization of words, indicating that deaf individuals heavily rely on information coming from the other perceptual modalities to form concepts. These findings suggest that hearing loss leads to a reorganisation of word conceptualization, characterised by increased multisensoriality. Importantly, although diminished, the auditory modality remains present, suggesting that deaf individuals can still infer auditory-associated knowledge about words to some extent.

中文翻译：

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通过聋人的感知强度规范探索概念表征和基础

在这项研究中，我们的目标是探讨听力损失对词义概念系统的影响。我们从听觉信息有限或无法获取的早期失聪者那里收集了 200 个意大利语单词的感知强度标准，并将其与听力正常者的现有标准进行了比较。对于每个单词，参与者提供了每种感知方式的感知强度评级。我们的结果显示，与听力正常的人群相比，聋哑人提供的听觉形态显着降低。然而，我们没有观察到报告的感知强度总体下降。有趣的是，我们发现其他感觉方式的参与程度更高，同时词的概念化中的方式排他性减少，这表明聋哑人严重依赖来自其他感知方式的信息来形成概念。这些发现表明，听力损失会导致单词概念化的重组，其特点是多感官性的增加。重要的是，尽管听觉方式有所减弱，但听觉方式仍然存在，这表明聋哑人仍然可以在某种程度上推断出与听觉相关的单词知识。