Investigated the relative effects of developmental level and domain-specific knowledge on 4- to 9-year-olds' ability to identify and make similarity decisions about objects based on haptic or tactile information. Found that older children explored models more exhaustively, found more differentiating features, and made fewer errors than younger…

To understand why children perceive traffic differently from adults, adults must position themselves at children's level, physically and cognitively, and devise instructional techniques that reflect children's size and physical and cognitive development. (IAH)

Data from this study of skilled and unskilled badminton players aged 10 to adult indicated the presence of systematic differences which transcend developmental age between the perceptual skills of expert and novice players. (JD)

An intermodal preference task, which presents 2 events side-by-side with a single sound track appropriate to 1 event, and measures subjects' visual preferences, was presented to 23 children with autism. Subjects showed the intermodal matching effect demonstrated with normal infants and young children; subjects did not demonstrate primary…

A study with three- and five-year olds contrasted two important proposals regarding children's assumptions about word meanings: the taxonomic assumption proposal and the shape bias proposal. Results suggest that perceptual similarity, particularly shape similarity, is very important in early word meaning but that children gradually shift their…

Examined children's social comparisons in conversational stories of past personal experiences as they related to development of concept of self. Found that comparisons of self with others increased with age. The 2-1/2-year olds used comparisons to convey similarities between self and others, whereas the 5-year-old subjects used social comparison…

Two experiments, involving a total of 126 subjects with mental retardation (mental age from 5-11 years), found that subjects were less likely than controls to employ the "difference rule" (communicate to the listener how a referent is different from other stimuli) and that perceptual feedback training enhances referential communication…

This paper offers a model of visual functioning focusing on three factors: (1) visual capacity, (2) visual processing, and (3) visual attention. Practical implications of visual therapy are considered, and intervention strategies with children with impaired visual functioning are suggested. (Author/DB)

Assessed 13- and 20-week-olds infants' discrimination between shearing stimuli, in which columns of dots move vertically on a screen at different velocities, and foil stimuli, in which all dots move at the same velocity. Results revealed the threshold levels of dot velocity in shearing stimuli at which discrimination occurred. (BC)

Investigated the hypothesis that preschoolers encode perceptual attributes, but not conceptual attributes, of objects in recall tasks. Children were asked to recall typical and atypical objects, or objects that varied in typicality and size. Children were influenced by both conceptual and perceptual stimulus characteristics. (LB)

Discusses the importance of sensory stimulation as our connection to the global life system. Expands the traditionally acknowledged 5 human senses to include over 53 additional ways of perceiving. Explains how sensory awareness as knowledge is culturally invalidated and mistrusted to the detriment of the quality of human life. (MCO)

Tested the ability of 3.5-month-old infants to detect audiovisual relations. Results demonstrated infants' visual recovery to changes in temporal synchrony of sight and sound and in composition of objects. Infants did not demonstrate visual recovery to changes in the relationship between pitch and color or shape. (BC)

Two experiments found that (1) by age 8 months infants perceived that leaning extends their effective reaching space to grasp objects; (2) by 10 months they perceived the effective limits of leaning and reaching; and (3) by 12 months they began to perceive how this space may be extended by a mechanical aid. (MDM)

This study evaluated the ability of 30 normally developing children (ages 6-12) to report the perceived location of a stationary fused auditory image (FAI) or track a "moving" FAI. Although subjects performed at normal adult levels with the stationary sound measure, they exhibited a significant age-related trend with the moving sound…

Infants were tested at 5, 8, and 13 months of age for numerosity perception. Subjects observed displayed figures on a screen moving at constant speed with irregular trajectories and occasional occlusions. Results demonstrated that discrimination of units, and not of characteristic patterns, underlies numerosity perception. (BC)