Visual expertise covers a broad range of types of studies and methodologies. Many studies incorporate some measure(s) of observer performance or how well participants perform on a given task. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis is a method commonly used in signal detection tasks (i.e., those in which the observer must decide whether…

Despite a long history of vigilance research, the role of global and local feature discrimination in vigilance tasks has been relatively neglected. In this experiment participants performed a sustained attention task requiring either global or local shape stimuli discrimination. Reaction time to local feature discriminations was characterized by a…

Although traditional methods to collect similarity data (for multidimensional scaling [MDS]) are robust, they share a key shortcoming. Specifically, the possible pairwise comparisons in any set of objects grow rapidly as a function of set size. This leads to lengthy experimental protocols, or procedures that involve scaling stimulus subsets. We…

We evaluated the influence of two different frequencies of data collection on skill acquisition and maintenance within behavioral treatment programs for children with autism spectrum disorders. Six children were taught multiple skills in up to four different behavioral programs. Half of the skills were measured continuously (i.e., trial by trial),…

Takes issue with scientific legibility studies which focus on isolating variables to obtain verifiable results, but which are not useful in the more complex and holistic design of specific type faces. Demonstrates visually the principles and attributes ending with Roxane, a typeface developed with certain principles in mind. (SC)

Forty preschoolers were directed to mentally rotate a stimulus and to discriminate the rotated stimulus from among a set of alternatives. Results are discussed in light of discrepant findings about children's kinetic imagery ability and the advisability of using this particular paradigm with young children. (Author/BS)

Compared two procedures for establishing and reversing stimulus control transfer across simple discrimination in children. Results indicated that both procedures were more effective in establishing that, in reversing stimulus control transfer, stimulus contiguity was more effective than match-to-sample training; and both procedures were more…

The agreement between visual analysis and the results of the split-middle method of trend estimation was examined using a set of 24 stimulus graphs and 30 raters. Results revealed poor agreement between the two methods, and low sensitivity, specificity, and predictive ability for visual analysis in relation to statistical inferences. (JDD)

The accelerating rate of data generation and resulting publications are taxing the ability of scientific investigators to stay current with the emerging literature. This problem, acute in science, is not uncommon in other areas. New approaches to managing this explosion of information are needed. While it is only possible to read one paper or…

Describes two experiments conducted with undergraduate students to determine effects of field dependence/independence on visual characteristics and presentation modes. The first studied content information recall from still projected visuals of different sizes and types of illustrations; the second studied visual-location task performance and…

Eleven papers comprise the special issue on learning disabilities and deal with definition, prevalence, promising research strategies, and potentially effective educational treatments oriented toward the processes of thought and the "learning to learn" strategy. (DB)

This study used three treatment conditions to examine feasibility of augmenting computer-presented learning activities for preschool children with instructional videotapes: computer activities alone, a videotape designed to improve visual discrimination with computer activities, and videotape with activities and discussion. Results indicate…

Investigates the influence of linguistic structure on non-linguistic cognition by comparing Russian and English behavior on tasks involving the color blue. Russians, who differentiate this region into "dark blue" and "light blue," were expected to separate blues more often than English subjects for whom the colors belong to one lexical category.…