Thirty-one infants ages 8 to 16 days were shown a ball, a ball picture, and a homogeneous stimulus card. Infants' reaching behavior was scored for each of the stimuli according to the following: (1) lateral extension of arm, (2) arcing movement of arm toward midline, and (3) flexion of arm toward the upper half of the body. (Author/MP)

One- to four-month-old infants' abilities to see various structural characteristics of a subjective contour figure were assessed by means of a habituation procedure. (Author/DB)

Attempts to differentiate the serial habituation hypothesis from the regression to the mean hypothesis as explanations for the reduction of visual fixations in the form perception of four-month-old infants. Results support a regression to the mean interpretation of the data. (JMB)

Explores preconditions for developing a theory of visual argument, emphasizing frequent lucidity of visual meaning, importance and varieties of visual context, argumentative complexities raised by notions of representation and resemblance, and questions visual persuasion pose for the standard distinction between argument and persuasion. Contains…

Discusses procedural schematics (how-to texts). Suggests activities to help students understand these documents. (RS)

Longitudinal findings concerning five male and five female infants suggest a number of age-related changes in the dominant mode of visual scanning. Changes involve attention to locations of stimulus contours and prominent features of the stimulus, accuracy of saccades, and reversion to scanning behaviors typical of younger ages under certain…

First, newborns' preferential looking between pairs of stimuli which varied in real size and viewing distance was solely determined by retinal size. Second, newborns desensitized to changes in distance and retinal size strongly preferred an object of a different size to the familiar one. (RH)

Criticizes an article in an earlier issue of this journal concerning Otto Neurath. Argues against the notion that Neurath was a communist and an agent of Soviet propaganda. Suggests that the previous article's dichotomy that graphic information is either hard science or pure art prevents an understanding of the subject. (RS)

Two experiments tested 10-month-old infants' categorization abilities. Infants were presented with a sequence of stimuli depicting members of a given category. Stimuli representing nonmembers of the category were inserted into the sequence. Infants appeared to disregard the nonmembers in the sequence. (MDM)

Two experiments used a visual habituation paradigm to examine infants' categorical discrimination of the medial stop consonants /aba/ and /apa/. Results provided evidence of infant categorical discrimination based solely on closure duration. Infants shifted their boundary toward shorter closure durations if they received pulsing during…

Shows how the scheme for understanding mimetic documents in previous columns can be used as a framework for understanding the levels of knowledge that make up John Anderson's "declarative stage." (RS)

In one experiment, infants were presented with their mother, a female stranger, and an object. In a second experiment, infants were presented with a female stranger and three objects with features that resembled an abstract, smiling face. In both experiments, infants smiled more to the person than to the objects. (BC)

Describes pictures--visual mimetic documents which show the denotative and connotative features of some object, state, or event. Presents instructional activities which use pictures. (RS)