Movimento ocular e percepção de cores em adultos surdos, ouvintes e intérpretes de libras

Abstract

Brazilian deaf people use the Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) to communicate and this is strictly visual, which leads to a formation of new neural possibilities facilitating neuroplastic processes. However, in addition, the interpreters / translators of Libras also make use of the language for professional use. Thus, this study aims to investigate whether deafness and / or frequent use of the Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) are related to a better cognitive performance, taking as an indicator functions of ocular movement and perception of nuclei. This is a cross-sectional, quantitative research with 30 adult volunteers divided into three groups: 10 deaf users of Libras (Age M = 28.8 SD = 2.92), 10 listeners who are not aware of Libras M = 30.2 SD = 3.31) and 10 interpreters of Pounds (Age M = 34 SD = 3.02). The research was submitted to the Research Ethics Committee of the UFPB under the CAAE protocol: 71610617.9.0000.5188. The instruments used were the socio-demographic questionnaire; the Desaturated Lanthony (D15d); the labyrinth test and the test of the seven errors in the device Eye tracker Tobii TX300. Using SPSS software, descriptive analyzes, normality tests and non-parametric tests were performed for data analysis. The results did not show significance for the Color Confusion Index (CCI) (p> 0.05), whereas in the labyrinth test there was significance for the following variables and only between hearing and deaf people: total time (X²=6.678; p=0.035 / U=10.100; p=0.031), amount of saccade (X²=10.170; p=0.006 / U=12.550; p=0.004), amount of fixations (X²= 7.742; p=0.021 / U=10.850; p=0.017), total duration of saccade (X²=7.161; p=0.028 / U=10.500; p=0.023), mean time of fixations (X²=8.225; p=0.016 / U=10.900; p=0.017). In the test of the seven errors, both the image of a boat and an elephant the average time of fixations showed significant evidence, in the boat image it was significant for the deaf and interpreter groups (X² = 6.204; p = 0.045 / U = 2.333, p = 0.019), in the image of the elephant for the deaf and hearing (X² = 12.751, p = 0.002 / U = 3.099, p = 0.001) and for the deaf and the interpreter (U = 3.024, p = 0.002). There was no correlation between the cause of deafness and the mean time of the fixations, nor the use of prosthesis and the average time of fixations. However, for the time of profession as interpreter and the mean time of fixation, there was significance (ρ = 0.665, p = 0.036). Considering that among the sensorial deficiencies, the deaf person uses the visual signals as the main form of sensorial processing of the world and the Libras is a visual language, we can consider that the acquisition of the Libras has relation with the improvement of performance, since the results show that in some aspects the performance of the deaf is superior, followed by the interpreters and finally the listeners.