Seven experiments involving a total of 203 college students explored a form of object-specific priming and established a robust object-specific benefit that indicates that a new stimulus will be named faster if it physically matches a previous stimulus seen as part of the same perceptual object. (SLD)

Examined temporal structure of free toy play by five year olds. Findings showed that the engagement of children's attention was initially fragile; became more fragile for a period of about 12 seconds into toy play episodes; and then grew stronger. (SH)

Six patients with cleft palate were provided treatment using either visual feedback for tongue placement and frication or no visual feedback. Results indicated the feedback was especially useful in the treatment of defective /s/ sounds in the patients who exhibited abnormal posterior tongue posturing during dental or alveolar sounds. (Author/DB)

Children of 8 and 11 years and college students were tested for reorientation of visual attention to a target following a cue. The first, but not the second, experiment showed an interaction between distance of target from fixation and stimulus onset asynchrony. The second experiment suggested children can orient attention through valid, neutral,…

Children and adults were tested on a mental rotation task in which letters were presented in different orientations. The task was performed by itself or with a memory task. Results indicated that the relation of response time to stimulus orientation in the rotation task was the same in both conditions. (BC)

Subjects were 30 participants at each of 4 ages: 5, 7, and 10 years, and adult. Subjects described objects ordered in pairs. Children of 5 and 7 years improved their ability to understand visual metaphors which display a topic-visual interaction. From age 5 to adulthood, subjects improved their ability to comprehend metaphoric similarity. (RH)

To determine the feasibility of using pictorial stimuli in preference assessments, multiple-stimulus preference assessments were conducted with two adults with mental retardation using both tangible stimuli and pictorial cards representing these same stimuli. Stimuli predicted by the tangible assessment were more potent reinforcers than those…

Analysis of Web site images of aging to identify positive and negative representations can help teach students about social perceptions of older adults. Another learning experience involves consideration of the needs of older adults in Web site design. (SK)

Investigates the effect of orientation of depth cues on the magnitude of perceived depth in pictures. Finds that, for each test drawing, the orientation with the far point above the near point provided greater depth perception than any other orientation. Discusses possible contributions of observer experience and height of visual field. (DSK)

Three threshold hypotheses proposed by Cummins (1976) and Diaz (1985) as explanations of data on the cognitive consequences of bilingualism are examined in depth and compared to one another. A neuroscientifically updated information-processing perspective on the interaction of second-language comprehension and visual-processing ability is…

Habituated 180 neonates to white lights of varying luminance and tested for recovery of habituation to green, yellow, or red lights varying in excitation purity. Found that newborns discriminated chromatic stimuli from white only when excitation purity exceeded levels much higher than those for adults. Results reinforce view that neonates' vision…

Used visual preference technique to examine infants' (mean age 14.8 months) comprehension of two novel words for images of novel objects. Found that infants looked preferentially at images that matched an auditory stimulus and that infants showed learning after about 12 presentations of new words. Results support previous demonstration of rapid…

Examined three possible explanations for findings that infants detect textural discrepancies based on individual features more readily than on feature conjunctions. Found that none of the proposed factors could explain 5.5-month-olds' superior processing of featural over conjunction-based textural discrepancies. Findings suggest that in infancy,…

Used multiple-baseline design to assess the utility of presenting three types of cues when teaching an abstract concept such as colors to three children with autism: plain, label, and symbol. Found colors presented with cues were easier to learn than color without cues. Findings support the need for sensitivity for the highly individualized…

Describes connectionist model showing exclusivity asymmetries when categorizing visual stimuli, similar to pattern shown by infants. Examines asymmetries in terms of an associative learning mechanism, distributed internal representations, and statistics of feature distributions in the stimuli. Details test of model with infants, finding that…