Discusses children's ideas about colored objects and colored shadows, with special attention to the organization of these ideas into mental models. The clarification of these models provides instructional tools that serve to assess and confront students' naive conceptions. Subjects were visitors to a science museum who engaged in interactive…

People categorized pairs of perceptual stimuli that varied in both category membership and pairwise similarity. Experiments 1 and 2 showed categorization of 1 color of a pair to be reliably contrasted from that of the other. This similarity-based contrast effect occurred only when the context stimulus was relevant for the categorization of the…

Four experiments are reported exploring whether distractor pictures activate their phonological properties in the course of speech production. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with two pictures and were asked to name one while ignoring the other. Distractor pictures were phonologically related, semantically related or unrelated to the…

This paper reports an example of a situation in which university students had to solve geometrical problems presented to them dynamically using the interactive computerized environment of the "MicroWorlds Project Builder". In the process of the problem solving, the students used ten different solution strategies. The unsuccessful…

Tests of dimensional dominance with planometric stimuli in either the visual or haptic modality were given to 108 children, 36 from each of the grade levels preschool, kindergarten, and first. Visual dimensions were form and color; haptic dimensions were form and texture. Following initial dominance assessment, one-third of the subjects were…

Reminiscence, or an increase in retention scores from a short-to-long-term retention test, has been shown in some previous work to be a significant function of arousal. Previous studies of the effects of color versus black-and-white audiovisual presentations have generally used film or television and have found no facilitating effect of color on…

Studies the link between the theory of the neurophysiology of color perception and Berlin and Kay's ideas on color linguistics and color perception. Two interpretations of studies of color terminology are shown, one supporting and one disproving the Whorf Thesis. (NCR)

Kindergarten pupils from six Mexican-Indian groups were shown colored textbook illustrations (paintings and photographs). There were no significant differences in comprehension between paintings and photographs, but there were perception differences by sex and between two ethnic groups, suggesting that children with different experiences perceive…

Attempts to determine what effect, if any, a color's hue or value has on the elementary school child's perception of apparent weight. (Author/RK)

Thirty students (ages 3-20) with profound mental retardation and 30 healthy, full-term infants (5-8 months) were shown 12 patterned stimuli, three times each. Both groups looked significantly longer at face patterns than other patterns. However, the students with mental retardation looked longer at black and white patterns than colored patterns,…

Reading-disabled children (n=92) were classified as either scotopic or nonscotopic using the Irlen Differential Perceptual Schedule. Use of either colored or clear overlays over reading material resulted in improved reading rate, accuracy, and comprehension when scotopic children read with the preferred colored overlay filter. Nonscotopic children…

When learning basic color vocabulary, young children show a selective delay in the acquisition of brown and gray relative to other basic color terms. In this study, we first establish the robustness of this finding and then investigate the extent to which perception, language, and color preference may influence color conceptualization.…

State-of-the-art computers being used today for instructional multimedia products have monitors capable of displaying millions of different colors. Designers are given virtually unlimited control over the factors that govern the display of these colors. This paper examines how color is displayed on computer monitors and interrelationships with how…

In a study of the differences in male and female descriptions of nine photographs, picture type was found to be an important variable. Twelve male and 8 female college students were asked to describe each of the photographs. Picture type was rated as high in interest to males, high in interest to females, or high in interest to both. Responses…

This study compares the effects of black and white and color mediated content on pupil's affective responses at different levels of maturation for 148 students in grades four, seven and 12 of the Calgary Public School System. Students in each treatment group were shown a set of 14 identical slides in either black and white or color and told to…