Compared 24 educable mentally retarded (EMR) adolescents, 24 chronological age (CA) matched nonretarded adolescents, and 24 mental age (MA) matched children in same-different decision task in which dyadic sequences were presented within and across visual and auditory modalities. Results supported concept of greater visual dominance by retarded and…

Two visual search experiments suggest that: cerebral lateralization of cognitive functions results from differences in sensorimotor resolution capacities of the hemispheres; both hemispheres can process verbal and visuospatial information analytically and holistically; and respective hemispheric competence is a function of the level of…

A technique is introduced to study the flow of information through processing stages in choice reaction time tasks. It was designed to determine whether response preparation can begin before stimulus identification is complete ("continuous" models) or if a stimulus must be fully identified prior to any response activation…

Letter encoding is typically viewed as an automatic process that is both obligatory and interference free. In these experiments, either familiar or non-familiar primes produced significant amounts of interference even when subjects were trying to ignore the visual input. Early perceptual components of encoding are both obligatory and resource…

A visual search task for target letters in multiletter displays was used to investigate information- processing differences between college students and presecond-grade children. (Author/DB)

Three experiments evaluated color specificity knowledge and related semantic effects on recognition memory. (Author/SB)

This study explored differences among 10 children with Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD), 10 age-matched peers, and 10 young adults, by examining vocal reaction time when presented with printed one- and two-syllable words. Children with CAPD produced significantly more errors than their peers or adults, specifically for long-delay…

Five young adult females with mild mental retardation were given match-to-sample training to develop four classes of equivalent stimuli. All subjects demonstrated development of all possible equivalence classes involving these stimuli. For four of five subjects, the classes that included auditory stimuli developed more rapidly than those that did…

The use of visual biofeedback in the treatment of individuals who have residual phonological errors is discussed. Biofeedback is conceptualized as a cognitive treatment that requires the client's analysis of visual information and then use of that information in developing correct productions of residual phonological errors. Results suggest the…

Reports on an experiment in which 46 undergraduates at Indiana University were exposed to television and newspaper stories, tested for factual recall, and retested after 2 days thinking time. Results indicate an improvement in recall over time (hypermnesia) that was more pronounced for visual images. (42 references) (EA)

Experiments were conducted on the speed of encoding differences between 15 school-age individuals with and 15 individuals without mental retardation, while retaining a full memory load or half memory load. Subjects with mental retardation allocated fewer attentional resources to encoding, even though encoding may require more of their resources…

Examined degree to which analytic and holistic modes of processing play a role in children's and adults' categorization of faces. Found a developmental trend from analytic to holistic processing and an effect of face inversion with increasing age. Seven-year-olds processed faces comparably to nonfacial visual stimuli, whereas a growing proportion…

Examined the role of the psychological process of comparison in young children's ability to extend a novel adjective to other objects sharing a salient property whether objects are of the same or different basic-level categories. Found that comparison operates in conjunction with naming to support extension of novel adjectives to properties of…

This study examined 4- and 6-month-olds' responses to static or dynamic stimuli using behavioral and heart-rate-defined measures of attention. Infants looked longest to dynamic stimuli with an audio track and least to a static stimulus that was mute. Overall, look duration declined with age to the different stimuli. The amount of time spent in…