It hasn't been clear how holistic and analytic processing contribute to character recognition yet. The current study focused on two issues: (1) whether configural processing is sufficient to support the performance of identifying characters in absence of analytic processing; (2) whether configural processing involves multiple levels of character…

One core question in studies of language processing is the extent to which interlocutors engage in real-time communicative perspective-taking. Current evidence suggests that both children and young adult listeners are able to draw on common ground (shared knowledge) to guide referential interpretation. However, less is known about older listeners,…

Investigations of concurrent task and modality switching effects have to date been studied under conditions of uni-modal stimulus presentation. As such, it is difficult to directly compare resultant task and modality switching effects, as the stimuli afford both tasks on each trial, but only one modality. The current study investigated task and…

The present study investigated the mechanisms responsible for the difference between visual processing of stimuli near and far from the observer's hands. The idea that objects near the hands are immediate candidates for action led us to hypothesize that vision near the hands would be biased toward the action-oriented magnocellular visual pathway…

Mechanisms of selective attention exert a powerful influence on visual perception. We examined whether attentional selection is necessary for generation of the vivid colours experienced by individuals with grapheme-colour synaesthesia. Twelve synaesthetes and matched controls viewed rapid serial displays of nonsense characters within which were…

It is suggested that the distinction between global versus local processing styles exists across sensory modalities. Activation of one-way of processing in one modality should affect processing styles in a different modality. In 12 studies, auditory, haptic, gustatory or olfactory global versus local processing was induced, and participants were…

This study examined the feasibility of the Atkinson Battery for Child Development for Examining Functional Vision (Atkinson, Anker, Rae, et al., 2002) to evaluate neurovisual functions of children with neurodevelopmental disorders in outpatient setting. A total of 90 patients underwent a comprehensive evaluation. Among these, a group of 33…

It is generally assumed that emotion facilitates human vision in order to promote adaptive responses to a potential threat in the environment. Surprisingly, we recently found that emotion in some cases impairs the perception of elementary visual features (Bocanegra & Zeelenberg, 2009b). Here, we demonstrate that emotion improves fast temporal…

In an influential study, R. J. Bootsma and P. C. W. van Wieringen (1990) argued that 2 of their 5 participants used visual information continuously during the attacking forehand drive in table tennis, its brief duration vis-a-vis the visuomotor delay notwithstanding. The authors repeated Bootsma and van Wieringen's experiment and included a…

Levels of independent variable(s) are often mixed within each block of trials rather than each level being presented in a separate block in research of various types. Two experiments involving tasks of a visual nature were conducted to demonstrate that such mixing can easily obscure the effects of principal interest. A target circle was projected…

The relationship between visual and auditory performance and reading achievement came under scrutiny in this study. It was thought that both poor and average readers would perform better on auditory tasks than on visual ones but that this discrepancy would be considerably greater for the poor or retarded reader. Seventy-two children from grades 1,…