Previous studies have indicated that visual-auditory temporal acuity is reduced in children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) in comparison to neurotypicals. In the present study we investigated temporal acuity for all possible bimodal pairings of visual, tactile and auditory information in adults with ASC (n = 18) and a matched control group…

Sensory judgments improve with practice. Such perceptual learning is often thought to reflect an increase in perceptual sensitivity. However, it may also represent a decrease in response bias, with unpracticed observers acting in part on a priori hunches rather than sensory evidence. To examine whether this is the case, 55 observers practiced…

Autism is currently one of the most prominent and widely discussed human conditions. Its increased prevalence has intensified the demand for effective educational and therapeutic services, and intervention science is providing mounting evidence about practices that positively impact outcomes. The purpose of this report is to describe a set of…

Although some evidence indicates that even very young children engage in rudimentary forms of strategic behavior, the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. This study tested the hypothesis that uncertainty monitoring underlies such behaviors. Three-, four-, and five-year-old children ("N" = 88) completed a perceptual…

Differential looking and manipulation were assessed in 44 six-month-old infants who were presented with familiar and novel visual stimuli. The infants looked at the novel stimuli longer. (ST)

INFANT SCRIBBLING ACTIVITY IS NOT SIMPLY PLAY. IT CONTRIBUTES TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF VISUAL ATTENTION AND PERCEPTION. YET, SCRIBBLING, UNLIKE WRITING IN THE COMMUNICATION SENSE, IS NOT MOTIVATED BY THE DESIRE TO INFORM, NOR TO SET DOWN THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS. THE EXPERIMENTAL HYPOTHESIS OF THIS STUDY WAS THAT THE MOTIVATIONS FOR SCRIBBLING ARE (1)…

Fixation time, smiling, vocalization, and fret/cry were recorded to obtain a complete picture of infants' responses to facial stimuli over the first year of life. Four stimuli were presented to 120 infants. Results of fixation data indicate that (1) there is a marked decrease in fixation toward facial stimuli within the first year, (2) at all ages…

In an evaluation of the relation between dimensional salience and preschoolers' judgments of bigness, 3-year-old children were shown triads of rectangles and asked to select the "big" one. The biggest rectangle in each triad was neither the tallest nor the widest. (JMB)

This paper describes a delayed response experiment which tested children's memory for the location of a hidden object. Eight boys and eight girls at each of two age levels (25 and 37 months) were assigned to each of four experimental conditions and given eight trials in a 9-choice task. On each trial the child saw the object hidden in one of nine…

The relationship between visual stimulus intensity and directional finger movements was examined in infants of two age groups (16 infants, 10 to 15 weeks old, and 8 infants, 20 to 25 weeks old). Two hypotheses derived from Schneirla's Approach-Withdrawal Theory were examined: (1) that responses of the younger, but not of the older infants, would…

This document reports on a series of visual scanning studies done with Israeli preschoolers and kindergartners to resolve issues related to diagnostic test and instructional materials design. The first study assessed the effect of item content on error rate. Three multiple-choice tests, differing only in item content, were given to 38…

Testing Pollack's hypothesis that decreases in effective contour contrast (resulting from a decrease in receptor sensitivity with age or from a change in actual stimulus contrast) lead to decreases in illusion magnitude. Conclusions are questioned by Sjostrom and Pollack (PS 501 740). (Author/MB)