This report uses mental model theory to create a taxonomy of picture functions in order to relate these functions to learning theories. A rough outline of picture functions is presented, consisting of a retrieval function, a focus function, a construction function, and a supplantation function. It is suggested that this taxonomy could be helpful…

Twenty-four congenitally visually handicapped infants, aged 6-24 months, participated in a study to determine (1) those stimuli best able to elicit visual attention, (2) the stability of visual acuity over time, and (3) the effects of binaural sensory aids on both visual attention and visual acuity. Ss were dichotomized into visually handicapped…

This report documents a computer-based gaming system for assessing recognition performance (RECOG). The game management system is programmed in a modular manner to: instruct the student on how to play the game, retrieve and display individual images, keep track of how well individuals play and provide them feedback, and link these components by…

The two goals of this investigation were to (1) examine the comprehension monitoring strategies adults employ when trying to understand procedural instructions and (2) determine how comprehension may be affected by varying such instructions. Sixty-eight college students, using instructions that consisted of either text alone, illustrations alone,…

This study questioned whether children's relative inability to use the two cerebral hemispheres independently contributes to their difficulty with the simultaneous execution of conflicting tasks. Two naming tasks involving the identification of upright and inverted letters were employed; conditions differed according to how the letter pairs were…

The relationship between creativity and perception was examined in two studies that correlated a combined total of 11 tests of perception (e.g., figure-ground and physiognomy) and creativity (e.g., remote associates and figure preferences). Four of the tests dealt with perception, five with creativity, and two with both. Since several of the tests…

The acquisition of visual information, which occurs during eye fixations, involves two processes: registration (visual information becoming available to the brain) and utilization (visual information being used to further text comprehension). Registration occurs at the beginning of a fixation, while at least four possible patterns describe the…

Through the years, motor skills have been taught by having students practice motor responses as the teacher verbally cued and corrected them. This teaching strategy may work in the long run, but it costs teachers an enormous amount of unnecessary time. Verbal cues and mediation training comprise a short cut process that allows for quicker learning…

Two experiments investigated relationships between state anxiety, memory processes, and children's performance on problem-solving tasks. Participants were second and sixth graders in a private elementary school in Redlands, California. In both experiments, subjects responded to three training and eight test problems presented in the introtact…

Thirty-six newborn infants were exposed to a visual stimulus until habituation was demonstrated; subjects were then presented with the same target or one of either moderate or large discrepancy from the standard stimulus. Following habituation, female infants displayed greater recovery of attention to moderate stimulus change. (SDH)

Fifteen normal-speaking kindergarteners, 15 kindergarteners with defective r's, and 15 preschoolers sound identification task which included sounds the speech-defective Ss misarticulated and sounds they articulated correctly. (GW)

A brief discussion on how pictures are related to written text. (HB)

This study of the effects of practice on children's perceptual judgments investigates the validity of the distinctive features hypothesis and the schemata hypothesis by comparing performance on discrimination tasks using familiar stimuli (letters of the alphabet) with a variety of transformations held constant over four massed practice conditions.…