Neurologically healthy adults display a reliable but slight leftward spatial bias, and this bias appears to change with age (Jewell & McCourt, 2000). Studies using line bisection and the landmark task to investigate pseudoneglect in participants over 60 years of age have shown suppression and near reversal of the leftward response bias. The…

Children sometimes make "scale errors," attempting to interact with tiny object replicas as though they were full size. Here, we demonstrate that instrumental tools provide special insight into the origins of scale errors and, moreover, into the broader nature of children's purpose-guided reasoning and behavior with objects. In Study 1, 1.5- to…

Although considerable progress has been made in understanding how adults perceive their direction of self-motion, or heading, from optic flow, little is known about how these perceptual processes develop in infants. In 3 experiments, the authors explored how well 3- to 6-month-old infants could discriminate between optic flow patterns that…

Results indicate that seven-month-old infants are sensitive to the depth cues of linear perspective and texture gradients. Self-produced locomotor experience is not necessary for the development of sensitivity to static-monocular depth information. (RJC)

Four experiments investigated 4-, 6-, and 9-month-old infants' ability to perceive whether the width relationship between a block and the opening of a box specified passing through or support. Found that six- and nine-month olds looked significantly longer than four-month olds when a block wider than a box opening passed through this opening. (MDM)

Children 3.5 to 5 years old were asked to judge which of several possible sets of parts matched a configured target form and to copy the target forms. Found a significant association between age and performance on the perception task and consistency across the two tasks. (MDM)

Investigated the relationship between sex hormones and spatial performance among adolescents treated with sex steroids for delayed puberty. Found that spatial performance varied according to gender but did not vary with levels of actively circulating sex steroids. Reviewed physiological mechanisms, developmental periods, and past empirical work…

A modified Visual Expectation Paradigm assessed the role of picture content in the spatiotemporal expectations of 80 infants. Stable picture content information facilitated formation of expectations about when and where pictures would appear. Two month olds' reactions were consistently slower than those of three month olds.(LB)

Examined visual search for compound patterns in 6-, 8-, 10-, and 22-year-olds. Found large improvements with age in search rate for long-range targets; search rate for short-range targets was fairly constant across age. This pattern held regardless of ease of perceptual access to target, supporting the hypothesis of different processes involved at…

Sixty-four infants viewed side-by-side videotapes of toy trains (in four visual conditions) and listened to sounds at increasing or decreasing amplitude designed to match one of the videos. Results suggested that five-month olds were sensitive to auditory-visual distance relations and that change in size was an important visual depth cue. (MDM)

Tested 63 kindergarten children on a spatial perspective task in which they copied the location and orientation of objects when the model and response spaces were aligned or when one was rotated 90 degrees or 180 degrees. (LLK)

Compared head circumference and interaural distance in infants between birth and 22 weeks of age and in a small sample of preschool children and adults. Calculated changes in interaural time differences according to age. Found a large shift in distance. (SKC)

Fourteen-month-old infants saw an object hidden inside a container and were removed from the disappearance locale for 24 hr. Upon their return, they searched correctly for the hidden object, demonstrating object permanence and long-term memory. Control infants who saw no disappearance did not search. In Experiment 2, infants returned to see the…

A total of 259 children between 5 and 12 years of age plotted the location and heading of an adult who was standing in their classroom onto a map of the classroom. Older children performed better than younger ones; boys performed better than girls. (MDM)

Second and third graders and fifth and sixth graders were tested in a very large, unfamiliar environment to determine the relation of their knowledge of an abstract reference frame to performance on a spatial inference task. (HOD)