Background: This study presents two experiments that investigated whether children with autism were susceptible to the Thatcher illusion. Perception of the Thatcher illusion requires being able to compute second-order configural relations for facial stimuli. Method: In both experiments children with autism were matched for non-verbal and verbal…

In this study, the author elucidated whether reading experience continues to contribute to word recognition skills in readers with well-internalized reading skills. The participants performed consecutive same or different judgments regarding the identicalness of letters, words, and pseudohomophones. For a more detailed examination of how increased…

Four eye-tracking experiments examined lexical competition in non-native spoken-word recognition. Dutch listeners hearing English fixated longer on distractor pictures with names containing vowels that Dutch listeners are likely to confuse with vowels in a target picture name ("pencil," given target "panda") than on less confusable distractors…

Computer-based learning environments commonly comprise symbolic as well as static and dynamic pictorial representations, frequently combined with the possibility of modifying them interactively. While multiple, dynamic and interactive external representations have the potential to improve learning in various ways, they also place specific demands…

This research analyses possible advantages of using schematic drawings with dyslexic readers in a transparent orthography (i.e. Spanish language). To assess the usefulness of such drawings, the procedure consisted of comparing latency times (LT) for familiar words and pseudo words in a naming task. The experimental group was formed by dyslexic…

A recent study suggests that lesions to all major areas of the cholinergic basal forebrain in the rat (medial septum, horizontal limb of the diagonal band of Broca, and nucleus basalis magnocellularis) impair a spatial working memory task. However, this experiment used a surgical technique that may have damaged cerebellar Purkinje cells. The…

The amygdala appears necessary for enhanced long-term memory associated with emotionally arousing events. Recent brain imaging investigations support this view and indicate a sex-related hemispheric lateralization exists in the amygdala relationship to memory for emotional material. This study confirms and further explores this finding. Healthy…

Building on previous studies of the effects of planning on second language (L2) learners' oral narratives and drawing on Kellog's (1996) model of writing, this article reports a study of the effects of three types of planning conditions (pretask planning, unpressured on-line planning, and no planning) on 42 Chinese learners' written narratives…

This case example illustrates how Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) within a behavior medicine approach was used in the rehabilitation of an adolescent with debilitating chronic pain. For chronic pain with unclear etiology (idiopathic pain), pharmacological therapy alone is often insufficient. Psychological treatment strategies have been…

This study compared the efficacy of measures of naming speed, verbal fluency and self-ratings for establishing language dominance in 25 bilingual English-Spanish adults with college degrees. Naming speed was measured by total naming times (in seconds) for five "Alzheimer's Quick Test" tasks (Wiig, Nielsen, Minthon & Warkentin, 2002)…

Purpose: Taking advantage of the rich morphological structure of Hebrew, the current article aims to examine whether age affects the processing of morphological forms through an investigation of 2 systematic morphological paradigms. Method: Forty-eight young and 48 old Hebrew speakers completed 2 experiments: the 1st investigated sensitivity to…

Auditory event-related potentials (mismatch negativity and P300) and behavioral discrimination were measured to synthetically generated consonant-vowel (CV) speech and nonspeech contrasts in 10 young adults with normal auditory systems. Previous research has demonstrated that behavioral and P300 responses reflect a phonetic, categorical level of…

Nonaversive behavior management is an approach to supporting people with undesirable behaviors that integrates technology and values. Although this approach has attracted numerous proponents, more adequate definition and empirical documentation are still needed. This article presents an introduction to the nonaversive approach. Important…

"Picture Exchange Communication System" (PECS) training was implemented with 5 nonspeaking adults with mental retardation who were not currently using any type of functional communication system. A modified ABAB, single-subject design was used to assess the effectiveness of PECS in enhancing the functional communication skills of these…

Background: Rett syndrome (RS) is a pervasive developmental disorder with cognitive and neuromotor impairments (including loss of handiness and loss of communicative skills). Objective: To verify whether girls with RS use their gaze intentionally, by observing their performance in three cognitive tasks: (1) verbal instruction condition (look at…