The enumeration of small numbers of objects (approximately 4) proceeds rapidly, accurately, and with little effort via a process termed subitization. Four experiments examined whether it was possible to subitize the number of features rather than objects present in a display. Overall, the findings showed that when features are presented randomly…

A review of the history of working memory (WM) studies finds that the concept of WM evolved from short-term memory to a multi-component system. Comparison between contemporary WM models reveals: (1) consensus that the content of WM includes not only task-relevant information, but also task-irrelevant information; (2) consensus that WM consists of…

Meaningful visual experience requires computations that identify objects as the same persisting individuals over time, motion, occlusion, and featural change. This article explores these computations in the tunnel effect: When an object moves behind an occluder, and then an object later emerges following a consistent trajectory, observers…

The present study assessed the relations between basic motor abilities in kindergarten and scholastic, social, and emotional adaptation in the transition to formal schooling. Seventy-one five-year-old kindergarten children were administered a battery of standard assessments of basic motor functions. A year later, children's adjustment to school…

According to the spatial registration hypothesis, the representation of stimulus location is automatically encoded during perception and it can interact with a more abstract linguistic representation. We tested this hypothesis in two experiments, using the semantic judgements of words. In the first experiment, words for animals that either fly or…

The aim of the present study was to assess the findings, reported in earlier studies, that individuals with autism spectrum disorders process visuo-spatial tasks faster than typically developing control persons. The participants in the present study were children and adolescents with Asperger syndrome (AS) or high-functioning autism (HFA) (N =…

Background: The study investigated a small range of cognitive abilities, related to visual-spatial intelligence, in adolescents. This specific range of cognitive abilities was termed "graphic abilities" and defined as a range of abilities to visualise and think in three dimensions, originating in the domain of visual-spatial…

Five experiments involving a total of 44 college students addressed the effects of intercomponent consistency on skill acquisition in a class of cognitively demanding tasks requiring rapid integration of information and rapid application of rules. The role of consistency of external stimulus-to-rule linkage in facilitating learning and performing…

This study examined the effects and interaction of multiple and linear visual presentation modes and cognitive style on performance in a visual location task. Subjects were 132 undergraduate college students (40 males, 92 females) in professional education courses. The Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT, Wilkin et al., 1971) was used to identify…

Two experiments involving 42 students from the Model Secondary School for the Deaf investigated both the visual and tactile components in the processing of spatial information. Test measures used were the Figures Rotations Test, Group Embedded Figures Test, and Tactile Rotations Test. The study suggested that spatial reasoning is a determining…

Explores (1) problems of the validity of tests of spatial ability, and (2) problems of the recessive gene influence theory of the origin of sex differences in spatial ability. Studies of cognitive strategies in spatial problem solving are suggested as a way to further investigate recessive gene influence. (Author/RH)

Discusses (1) the process of early language development, giving specific attention to problematic aspects of a vocabulary for audition; (2) elicitation and instruction tasks used in the study of language acquisition; and (3) an investigation designed to compare language acquisition for dimensions of visual, spatial, and tactual perception with…

These studies confirm the view that the "air gap" phenomenon, which refers to the area that remains when ground and sky lines are constructed at the bottom and top of a drawing, is commonly found in the free drawings of middle and later childhood, but that it is readily abandoned when task demands are modified accordingly. (Author/DB)

The construct validity of the Hooper Visual Organization Test (VOT) (H. Hooper, 1983) was studied by comparing it to conceptually similar and dissimilar cognitive abilities in a principal components analysis of results from 240 participants with cognitive impairment. Results suggest that the VOT is best considered a measure of visual-spatial…

Two studies of development of spatial representation with two dimensions found that children as young as five years use the same two independent dimensions in fine-grained spatial coding of location in a circle as adults use--radius and angle. The adult pattern, where angle as well as radius is coded hierarchically, emerges by nine years. (HTH)