Figure 5: Stimuli with no linguistic content reveal only plastic changes induced by auditory deprivation.

The figure shows the results obtained when comparing the activations elicited by the Cue images displayed just before the sign-based material. Cue images consisted of static pictures of handshapes or highlighted parts of the model’s body, and they did not have explicit linguistic content. Results presented in this figure correspond to comparisons between the three tightly matched groups of Deaf Signers (N=7), Deaf Oral (N=7) and Hearing Non-Signers (N=7; all as in Fig. 1). Within a second level analysis of variance for group comparison, the effect of auditory deprivation was evaluated with the conjunction of T-contrasts [DS>HN] and [DO>HN]; that of sign language with the conjunction [DS>DO] and [DS>HN]. All results were overlaid on three-dimensional representations of the brain (left) or sagittal slices (right). Images are displayed at a threshold of P<0.005 (uncorrected) and a spatial threshold of 20 voxels, but activations are discussed only if they reached corrected significance (P<0.05, FWE) at cluster or single voxel level. Only the cluster in the right superior temporal cortex reaches significance at P<0.05 (FWE corrected). Coordinates are in MNI space.