This work investigates, first, whether the integration of color and shape information is affected by attending to the stimulus location, and second, whether attending to a stimulus location enhances the perceptual representation of the stimulus or merely affects decision processes. In three experiments, subjects were briefly presented with colored…

The processing of mental structures in perception appears to be serial, in that viewers can fill in missing parts from an impoverished stimulus following a top down process. To investigate the effects of unfamiliarity, complexity, and legibility on object and layout perception of unfamiliar stimuli, ten subjects were shown one of four ribbon…

This study considered two questions about infants' perception of affective expressions: (1) Can infants distinguish between happiness and anger on the basis of facial motion information alone? (2) Can infants detect a correspondence between happy and angry facial and vocal expressions by different people? A total of 40 infants of 7 months of age…

The significance of spatial factors on an initial segmentation and an active attentional phase was demonstrated by briefly exposing spatial configurations of elements, and then asking the subjects to reproduce the patterns or to search them for a target letter. The stimulus displays consisted of small o's forming different spatial configurations,…

The theory is developed and contrasted with other theories of pattern recognition in which concepts such as stimulus generalization, tuned detectors, and preprocessing play major roles. A relation of this theory to problems encountered among disabled readers ("dyslexics") is also brought out. (Author/BJG)

In a visual recognition masking experiment, a target stimulus to be identified is either preceded or followed by a second stimulus called a masking stimulus. The experiments described here provide estimates of both developmental and aging differences in visual backward masking under conditions which maximize interference in the central visual…

Visual field theory was examined insofar as television viewers' perception, retention, and preference for still visual images were concerned. The purpose of the experimental investigation was to determine whether the specific shapes, colors, and placement of visuals within a picture frame affected viewers' abilities to perceive, describe, and…

INJURY TO THE NERVOUS SYSTEM CAN RESULT IN DEFECTS OF FIGURE FORMATION SUCH AS LACK OF PRECISION OF FIGURE AND UNCERTAINTY AS TO WHICH IS FIGURE AND WHICH IS GROUND. IMPAIRMENT OF FIGURE GROUND PROCESSES MAY BE LIMITED TO ONE AREA OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM FUNCTION. DISTURBANCE IN FIGURE FORMATION MAY NOT RESULT IN PERCEPTION DISTURBANCES, DEPENDING…

This experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that subjects must know the length of the viewing matter they will be scanning before the target is presented in order to scan efficiently. Adult subjects were required to scan visually for a predetermined item. Targets were one, two, or four letters in length and the pairs of slides shown on…

Evaluated were the properties and fine structures of averaged visually evoked potentials (AVEP) in 60 normal children between the ages of 2 and 9 years. Electroencephalographic recordings were taken while white diffuse flashes were used to deliver visual stimuli to the Ss. Three types of AVEP patterns were discerned, with no relationship observed…

A long-range investigation is being made to define the characteristics required of a television system to simulate a visual environment which will permit target acquisition performance comparable to that obtained in the real world. In this portion of the investigation, target recognition performance under direct viewing conditions was compared…

A component selection measure developed by Hale and Morgan (1971) was used to determine children's tendency to exercise selective attention. This tendency was assessed at six different levels of training, ranging from undertraining to overtraining, and was examined at each of three ages--4 (N=116), 8 (N=216), and 12 (N=104). In the learning phase,…

Visual perseveration was investigated within educable mentally retarded and second, fifth, and eighth grade normal children (N = 12 each group). (Author)

Reports on a series of four experiments designed to determine more precisely the characteristics of the stage of visual feature analysis of word identification and to examine response competition factors in this interference task. (SB)

Studies the processing of pictures and words as symbols. Shows that the superiority of pictures results from the fact that pictures are interpreted more quickly than words, but that after the interpretation is made, processing is the same. Also gives evidence that pictures and words are both processed in terms of linguistic codes rather than…