It is well established that scenes and objects elicit a highly selective response in specific brain regions in the ventral visual cortex. An inherent difference between these categories that has not been explored yet is their perceived distance from the observer (i.e. scenes are distal whereas objects are proximal). The current study aimed to test…

In evaluative conditioning (EC), the pairing of a positively or negatively valenced stimulus (US) with another neutral stimulus (CS) leads to a corresponding change in liking of the CS. EC research so far has concentrated on using unambiguously positive or negative USs. However, attitude objects often possess multiple features that can be positive…

Purpose: The ability to detect a tone added to a random masker improves when a preview of the masker is provided. In 2 experiments, the authors explored the role that perceptual organization plays in this release from masking. Method: Detection thresholds were measured in informational masking studies. The maskers were drawn at random prior to…

Research has suggested that a daily multiple-stimulus-without-replacement (MSWO) preference assessment may be more sensitive to changes in preference than other assessment formats, thereby resulting in greater correspondence with reinforcer efficacy over time (DeLeon et al., 2001). However, most prior studies have measured reinforcer efficacy…

Stimulus-stimulus pairing (SSP) of vocalizations pairs the speech of others with the delivery of highly preferred items. The goal of this procedure is to produce a temporary increase in vocalizations, thus creating a larger variety of sounds that can subsequently be brought under appropriate stimulus control (Esch, Carr, & Grow, 2009). In this…

Event duration perception is fundamental to cognitive functioning. Recent research has shown that localized sensory adaptation compresses perceived duration of brief visual events in the adapted location; however, there is disagreement on whether the source of these temporal distortions is cortical or pre-cortical. The current study reveals that…

A common assumption is that phonetic sounds initiate unique processing in the superior temporal gyri and sulci (STG/STS). The anatomical areas subserving these processes are also implicated in the processing of non-phonetic stimuli such as music instrument sounds. The differential processing of phonetic and non-phonetic sounds was investigated in…

Background: Many children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) struggle to understand familiar words and learn unfamiliar words. We explored the extent to which these problems reflect deficient use of probabilistic gaze in the extra-linguistic context. Method: Thirty children with ASD and 43 with typical development (TD) participated in a spoken…

Purpose: Previous research has demonstrated that children weight the acoustic cues to many phonemic decisions differently than do adults and gradually shift those strategies as they gain language experience. However, that research has focused on spectral and duration cues rather than on amplitude cues. In the current study, the authors examined…

A common recommendation with least-to-most prompting is to repeat the discriminative stimulus (S[superscript D]) with each successive prompt (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007). However, few studies have evaluated this recommendation. We compared repeating the S[superscript D] to presenting the S[superscript D] once when teaching intraverbal…

"Iconic memory" is the ability to accurately recall a number of items after a very brief visual exposure. Previous research has examined these capabilities in typically developing (TD) children and individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID); however, there is limited research on these abilities in children with Autism Spectrum…

A number of studies have demonstrated atypical perception in individuals with ASD. However, the majority of these studies have presented stimuli to central vision. The aim of the study presented here was to test the sensitivity of peripheral vision in ASD. This was achieved by asking participants to detect brief flashes of light presented between…

Fluency-based strategies such as Say All Fast a Minute Each Day Shuffled (SAFMEDS) effectively promote fluent responding (i.e., high rate and accuracy). It is possible, however, that the stimulus control developed through these activities inhibits stimulus generalization. We investigated this concern in a two-part study with college students.…

A common characteristic of the language deficits experienced by children with autism (and other developmental disorders) is their failure to acquire a complex intraverbal repertoire. The difficulties with learning intraverbal behaviors may, in part, be related to the fact that the stimulus control for such behaviors usually involves highly complex…

Axe (2008) speculated that some instances of intraverbal responding might be associated with limited or delayed acquisition because they require discrimination of multiple components of verbal stimuli. Past studies suggest that acquisition of responses under control of complex, multicomponent antecedent stimuli (e.g., conditional or compound…