The 12 intelligent, prelingually deaf children were matched with 12 hearing controls and their performance compared on visual search and tachistoscopic report tasks. The deaf showed no impairment at visual search and were equally slowed by letter-name confusability in search lists. Performance of the deaf scarcely differed from the hearing at brief exposures but at long exposures was markedly inferior and showed an early asymptote. Interpolated finger counting or counting aloud affected recall of the deaf slightly and equally. For hearing subjects a vocal interpolated task had a much greater interfering effect and reduced performance to a level similar to the deaf. Discussion centers on the buffering and organizing functions of rehearsal.
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Henderson et al. (1973) studied this question.