Background: For many years, and especially since Waynbaum and Wallon, psychology and psychopathology have dealt with cognitive perception, but have had little to do with the affective qualities of perception. Our aim was to study the influence of the sensory environment on people with autism. Method: Several experiments were carried out using…

Studied facial expressions of 20 infants of 4 and 6 months during contingency or noncontingency learning. Differing emotional expressions and distinctive patterns of expressions characterized contingent but not control subjects. Results indicated that emotion and contingency learning were closely linked in young infants. (RJC)

This article describes a dynamic, short-term art therapy approach that has been developed for the treatment of trauma related disorders. Using a modified Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) protocol with alternating tactile and auditory bilateral stimulation, associations are rapidly brought to conscious awareness and expressed in…

In this study, changes in infant's attention to novel on familiar stimuli in novel and familiar environments as a function of age were examined. By 8 weeks, males fixated a novel stabile more if in a familiar environment while females fixated the novel stabile more if in a novel environment. (Author/WY)

The forebrain cholinergic neurons are localized in the nucleus basalis magnocellularis (NBM), the major source of cholinergic innervation to the neocortex and to the amygdala, and in the medium septum-banda diagonalis complex, which provides cholinergic inputs to the hippocampus (Mesulam et al. 1983; Woolf et al. 1984; Nicoll 1985). Basic and…

Stimulated recall (SR) is a family of introspective research procedures through which cognitive processes can be investigated by inviting subjects to recall, when prompted by a video sequence, their concurrent thinking during that event. Variations of the generic approach are widely used and many of the studies treat SR as non-problematic. The…

Vividly presented information is thought to be more persuasive and have more impact on judgments. An examination of the proposed processes in vividness effects (memorability, imageability and affective impact) reveals these arguments are themselves problematic. Effects may occur in differential attention conditions, whereas absolute attention is…

In order to shed light on the needs of children with cortical visual impairments, normal visual development of infants is described. Infant preferences for motion, faces, and black-and-white patterns are explained. Colors useful in stimulating vision development and the time needed for exposure to visual stimuli are discussed. (CR)

We attempted to simulate the main features of letter-by-letter (LBL) dyslexia in normal readers through stimulus degradation (i.e. contrast reduction and removal of high spatial frequencies). The results showed the word length and the letter confusability effects characteristic of LBL dyslexia. However, the interaction of letter confusability and…

Presents an overview of the development of motivational thought in the study of exploratory behavior and curiosity. Traces the way in which concepts of curiosity were considered from the perspectives of instinct and drive-reduction theories to the more recent notions of optimal stimulation. (Author)

Acetylcholine release in sensory neocortex contributes to higher-order sensory function, in part by activating nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). Molecular studies have revealed a bewildering array of nAChR subtypes and cellular actions; however, there is some consensus emerging about the major nAChR subtypes and their functions in…

We previously showed that prenatal choline supplementation could increase the precision of timing and temporal memory and facilitate simultaneous temporal processing in mature and aged rats. In the present study, we investigated the ability of adult rats to selectively control the reinforcement-induced resetting of an internal clock as a function…

Procedural and declarative memory systems are postulated to interact in either a synergistic or a competitive manner, and memory consolidation appears to be a highly critical stage for this process. However, the precise cellular mechanisms subserving these interactions remain unknown. To investigate this issue, 24-h retention performances were…

Man's long period of cerebral growth has important implications for education. The brain goes through major developmental changes after birth, and researchers have suggested that this growth process presents an opportunity for fostering the plasticity of genetically determined connections. Animal studies show that postnatal growth of the brain is…