The authors examined the prioritization of abruptly appearing objects in real-world scenes by measuring the eyes' propensity to be directed to the new object. New objects were fixated more often than chance whether they appeared during fixations (transient onsets) or saccades (nontransient onsets). However, onsets that appeared during fixations…

Braking to avoid a collision can be controlled by keeping the deceleration required to stop (i.e., ideal deceleration) in the "safe" region below maximum deceleration, but maximum deceleration is not optically specified and can vary as conditions change. When brake strength was manipulated between participants using a simulated braking task, the…

False memories are often demonstrated using the misinformation paradigm, in which a person's recollection of a witnessed event is altered after exposure to misinformation about the event. The neural basis of this phenomenon, however, remains unknown. The authors used fMRI to investigate encoding processes during the viewing of an event and…

Researchers studying monitoring accuracy currently use two different indexes to estimate accuracy: relative accuracy and absolute accuracy. The authors compared the distributional properties of two measures of monitoring accuracy using Monte Carlo procedures that fit within these categories. They manipulated the accuracy of judgments (i.e., chance…

Examined in a longitudinal study of children were correspondences and correlations between early language development on the one hand, and the manipulation of objects and play development on the other. There were developmental correspondences between the onset of five language landmarks (the emergence of first word, referential word, demonstrative…

GRADES OR AGES: Grades K-6. SUBJECT MATTER: Physical Education--includes sections on a) exploring movement, b) locomotor and nonlocomotor skills, c) perceptual-motor skills, d) object manipulation, e) ball handling, f) rhythms, g) gymnastics, and h) physical fitness. ORGANIZATION AND PHYSICAL APPEARANCE: The first section presents a program…

Describes an activity to create squares by placing different numbers of tangram pieces together. Discusses why the combination of six tangram pieces can not create a square. Presents diagrams of the tangram pieces and the squares made. (YP)

Two experiments show that action alters the shape categories formed by 2-year-olds. Experiment 1 shows that moving an object horizontally (or vertically) defines the horizontal (or vertical) axis as the main axis of elongation and systematically changes the range of shapes seen as similar. Experiment 2 shows that moving an object symmetrically (or…

This ERIC digest examines recent research about the use of manipulatives to teach mathematics. "Manipulatives" refers to objects that can be touched and moved by students to introduce or reinforce a mathematical concept. The digest also speculates on some of the challenges affecting future use of manipulatives. Since the 19th century,…

A total of 53 rural, impoverished children (37 aged 3-5, from a day care center and 16 5-year-olds from a Head Start Center) were investigated for influences of age and sex on early social behavior. Individuals were observed in 15-minute play sessions and assessed with a standard observational category system. (CS)

Age-related characteristics of children's short-term retention of kinesthetic movement information were examined in this study. Three age levels (6-, 8-, and 10-year old children) were tested for recall of preselected location movements on a linear slide apparatus. Immediate and delayed recall were used in 16 trials. The results indicate that…

A seriation task (assembling a set of nesting cups) was used in this study to examine developmental changes in young children's ability to restructure a situation. Forty young children, eight each at 18, 24, 30, 36, and 40 months of age, participated in the study. Each child was presented with five nesting cups and was told he or she could play…

A dissertation proposal involved a study to observe spontaneous behavior of children in interaction with materials in order to gain understanding of the factors that influence classificatory and imaginative behavior in free play. Children at two levels of ability in terms of classification skills were observed in interaction with materials at two…

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether playing a specific ball sport, such as tennis, could maintain the coincidence-timing (CT) performance of older adults at a similar level to that of younger ones. To address this question, tennis players and nonplayers of three different age ranges (ages 20-30, 60-70, and 70-80 years)…