Glossary

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Anchoring Effect(also: Anchoring Bias, Cognitive Anchoring)

A cognitive bias in which people rely too heavily on an initial piece of information (the "anchor") when making subsequent decisions or judgements. In the context of digital accessibility, the anchoring effect has been documented in alt text authoring, where content authors who…

Cocktail Party Effect

The human ability to focus auditory attention on a single speaker or sound source while filtering out competing voices and background noise. Named after the experience of following one conversation at a noisy party, this perceptual phenomenon demonstrates that the auditory…

Cross-modal Plasticity(also: Cross-modal Reorganisation, Cross-modal Cortical Recruitment, Sensory Substitution)

A neurological phenomenon in which brain regions typically dedicated to processing one sensory modality are repurposed to process information from another sense, often as a result of sensory deprivation. In deaf individuals, auditory cortical areas can reorganise to support…

Fluid intelligence(also: Fluid reasoning, Gf)

The cognitive ability to reason, solve novel problems, and identify patterns without relying on previously acquired knowledge or skills. Fluid intelligence typically declines with age and is commonly measured through tasks involving pattern recognition, inductive reasoning, and…

Gaze Reinstatement(also: Gaze Reinstatement Effect, Looking-at-Nothing Paradigm)

Gaze reinstatement is the cognitive phenomenon in which a person mentally recalling or imagining a previously seen scene reproduces, on a blank or unrelated surface, eye movement patterns similar to those made when the scene was first viewed. The effect was demonstrated through…

Gaze Switching(also: Visual Attention Switching, Split Attention)

The act of shifting visual focus between two or more information sources, such as between captions and presentation slides in a classroom, or between a sign language interpreter and a speaker. Gaze switching is particularly costly for deaf and hard of hearing students who rely…

Germane Cognitive Load(also: Germane Load)

One of three types of cognitive load identified by cognitive load theory, referring to the mental effort devoted to processing, constructing, and automating knowledge schemas — the productive cognitive work that leads to actual learning. Unlike extraneous load (which is…

Incidental Learning(also: Observational Learning, Informal Learning)

Knowledge and skills acquired without deliberate instruction, typically through casual observation of the environment and other people. An estimated 80% of early childhood learning occurs incidentally through vision — watching how others make sandwiches, navigate social…

Intrinsic Cognitive Load(also: Intrinsic Load)

One of three types of cognitive load identified by cognitive load theory, referring to the inherent difficulty of the material being learned based on its complexity and the learner’s prior knowledge. Intrinsic cognitive load is determined by the number of elements that must be…

Mental Imagery(also: Visual Imagery, Mind's Eye Imagery)

Mental imagery is the experience of perceiving sensory information, most often visual, in the absence of the corresponding external stimulus, such as picturing a familiar face or replaying a remembered scene. Imagery vividness varies widely between individuals and is commonly…

Model Human Processor(also: MHP, Human Processor Model)

A cognitive architecture developed by Card, Moran, and Newell (1983) that models human information processing as three interconnected subsystems: perceptual, cognitive, and motor processors, each with characteristic cycle times. The perceptual processor (~100ms) handles sensory…

NASA-TLX(also: NASA Task Load Index, Task Load Index, NASA TLX)

A widely used subjective workload assessment tool developed by NASA that measures perceived workload across six dimensions: mental demand, physical demand, temporal demand, performance, effort, and frustration. In accessibility research, NASA-TLX is frequently used to evaluate…

Perceptual Span(also: Reading Span, Visual Span)

The area of text around a fixation point from which useful information can be extracted during reading. Research using eye-tracking has shown that skilled deaf readers have a larger perceptual span than hearing readers — up to 18 letter spaces compared to 14 for hearing readers…

Perceptual speed(also: Processing speed, Cognitive processing speed)

The speed at which an individual can accurately perceive, compare, and respond to visual or auditory stimuli, typically measured through timed tasks requiring rapid symbol comparison or pattern matching. Perceptual speed declines with age and is a significant predictor of…

Perspective-taking(also: Cognitive empathy, Theory of mind)

The cognitive ability to understand and consider another person's thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and point of view. In accessibility and neurodiversity contexts, perspective-taking is central to the double empathy problem — research shows that neurotypical individuals struggle…

Processing Speed(also: Information Processing Speed, Cognitive Processing Speed)

A cognitive ability referring to how quickly a person can perceive, process, and respond to information. Processing speed affects how rapidly someone can read, understand instructions, react to stimuli, and complete timed tasks. It naturally declines with age, beginning in…

Prospective Memory

The ability to remember to carry out intended actions in the future, such as taking medication at a specific time, attending an appointment, or completing a task when a particular cue arises. Prospective memory is distinct from retrospective memory (remembering past events) and…

Routinisation(also: Routinization, Age-Related Routinisation)

The tendency of older adults to increasingly organise their daily activities into fixed, predictable routines as they age. As cognitive resources decline, older adults optimise their remaining capacity by performing activities in the same order, at the same times, and in the…

Sensory Compensation(also: Cross-Modal Plasticity, Sensory Substitution)

The phenomenon whereby the loss of one sense leads to enhanced abilities in remaining senses, driven by neuro-plasticity — the brain's capacity to reorganise its neural pathways. Research shows that blind individuals, particularly those blind from birth or early childhood,…

Sighted Memory(also: Visual Memory, Sighted Recall)

A mental representation of a physical environment developed through past visual experience, used by people who lose their sight later in life to navigate and understand spaces they previously knew visually. People with acquired vision loss often rely on sighted memory to recall…

Social Attention(also: Social Orienting)

The set of behaviours, motivations, and perceptual processes involved in directing and coordinating attention toward other people during social interaction. Social attention includes orienting toward others, maintaining awareness of their position and gaze direction, and using…

Special Interest(also: Hyperfocus Interest, Intense Interest)

A special interest is a deep, focused, and often long-lasting passion for a specific topic, activity, or subject area, commonly experienced by autistic individuals. Special interests go beyond typical hobbies in their intensity and depth of knowledge, and they can be a source of…

Visual Attention Span(also: VAS, Visual Attention Window)

The number of distinct visual elements that can be processed simultaneously in a single glance. Visual attention span is a cognitive capacity linked to reading ability — when reading, the eyes fixate on a word and the visual attention span determines how many letters can be…

Visual Attention Split(also: Split Attention, Divided Visual Attention)

The cognitive challenge of needing to divide visual focus between two or more sources of information simultaneously. For deaf and hard of hearing people, visual attention split is a pervasive accessibility barrier: they must look at captions or a sign language interpreter while…

Visual Cognition(also: Visual Processing, Visual Perception)

The set of mental processes involved in perceiving, interpreting, and responding to visual information, including object recognition, spatial awareness, motion detection, and visual attention allocation. Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals demonstrate heightened visual…

Visual dispersion(also: Visual splitting, Divided visual attention)

The cognitive challenge faced by deaf and hard of hearing people when they must simultaneously monitor multiple visual information sources, such as an instructor, presentation slides, a sign language interpreter or captions, and their own notes. Because deaf individuals receive…

Visual search

The perceptual task of scanning a visual scene to locate a specific target among distractors. Visual search is significantly affected by low vision, visual field loss, and other visual impairments, as reduced acuity or restricted fields make it harder and slower to locate…

Visuospatial Attention(also: Visual-Spatial Attention, Visuospatial Processing)

The cognitive ability to attend to, process, and mentally manipulate visual and spatial information in the environment. Visuospatial attention involves orienting to locations in space, tracking objects, and understanding spatial relationships between elements. Research has…

Working memory(also: Short-term memory)

The cognitive system responsible for temporarily holding and manipulating information during complex tasks such as language comprehension, reasoning, and decision-making. Working memory has limited capacity, typically described as 7 plus or minus 2 items, and varies between…

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