The development of executive functions in the preschool years is not fully understood. Although there exists a large body of research investigating the maturation of executive functioning in school-aged children, little is known about the emergence of such skills, in particular inhibition, among preschool-aged children. Understanding developmental…

A study examined how well children could discriminate matches from nonmatches of multicomponent stimuli within the prototypic mental rotation task and how long it would take them to make such discriminations. The goal was to determine whether children are differentially sensitive to the various spatial features of visual stimuli and whether…

Contrary to Piaget's predictions, adolescent retardates and 9-year-old normals were more susceptible to the Oppel-Kundt Illusion than high school sophomores and adults. No group differences were found on the Poggendorf Illusion. (MH)

Pioneering research has shown that infants are capable of perceptual discrimination and has provided some indication of the nature of the discrimination; that is, what stimuli are differentiable. Studies have demonstrated that significant effects exist, in stimulus-pair comparisons, for age of infant, speed of movement of stimulus during…

Test Battery was designed to explore the auditory and the visual perceptual processing abilities of children from five through eight. (Authors)

Four groups of children (N=80; C.A. 6.6. to 12.5; M.A. 7.9 to 14.7) were tested for ability to reproduce five-element two- and three-dimensional patterns. Significant interaction and main effects were found. Three-dimensional pattern performance increased with age; all ages performed well on two-dimensional patterns. (Author/DB)

Examines perceptions of adults compared with preschool children in assuming object permanence or discontinuity of existence when an object is removed from their immediate perceptual field. Results showed that a belief in the possibility of the discontinuity of material objects is not unique to the minds of preschool children but can also be…

Although numerous studies have indicated that older persons process visual information more slowly than younger persons, the precise nature of age-associated changes in the processing of visually presented information remains unclear. Older adults (N=18) and college students (N=18) performed a visual search task in which lists of words and…

Witkin's Embedded Figures Test (EFT) was used to measure the changes with age in field dependence and problem-solving ability. Qualitative data concerning problem-solving strategies and quantitative data were collected. EFT was administered to 12 females in each of the following decades: 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. All subjects were moderately…

Grade level norms were developed, based on a sample of 678 elementary school students, for various error scores of the Benton Visual Retention Test. Norms were also developed for 201 normal children, 58 minimal brain dysfunction children, and 101 educable mentally retarded children. In both the copying mode and the memory mode, most errors were…

Discusses changes occurring in two-, four-, and six-month-old infants' visual attention span, through a series of experiments examining their ability to orient to peripheral visual stimuli. The results obtained were consistent with the hypothesis that infants get faster with age in shifting attention to a spatial location. (AA)

Investigated the relationship between Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire scores and kinesthetic acuity--the sense of body position and movement--among 10- and 14-year-olds. Found that in the older group, those with high levels of visual movement imagery performed better on measures of kinesthetic acuity; no such effect was found for…

A class of preschoolers, aged 44-63 months and grouped according to age, sex, sibling position, family size and the occupation of each parent, were the subjects of a 2-part study to examine preschoolers' perceptions of mothers. In the first part of the study, each child was shown 4 sets of pictures depicting a variety of possible mother figures.…

The study determined if a significant difference was demonstrated between American Indians and Caucasians on visual perception and recall tasks associated with cognitive function. It was hypothesized that a significant difference existed between scores obtained by Indian children enrolled in reservation schools and that of Caucasian children…