We examined facial electromyography (fEMG) activity to dynamic, audio-visual emotional displays in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and typically developing (TD) individuals. Participants viewed clips of happy, angry, and fearful displays that contained both facial expression and affective prosody while surface electrodes measured…

Training that uses exaggerated versions of a stimulus discrimination (fading) has sometimes been found to enhance category learning, mostly in studies involving animals and impaired populations. However, little is known about whether and when fading facilitates learning for typical individuals. This issue was explored in 7 experiments. In…

Adult humans demonstrate differential processing of stimuli that were recurrent threats to safety and survival throughout evolutionary history. Recent studies suggest that differential processing of evolutionarily ancient threats occurs in human infants, leading to the proposal of an inborn mechanism for rapid identification of, and response to,…

The nature of the connection between musical and spatial processing is controversial. While pitch may be described in spatial terms such as "high" or "low", it is unclear whether pitch and space are associated but separate dimensions or whether they share representational and processing resources. In the present study, we asked participants to…

In the current ERP study, an active oddball task was carried out, testing pure tones and auditory, visual and audiovisual syllables. For pure tones, an MMN, an N2b, and a P3 were found, confirming traditional findings. Auditory syllables evoked an N2 and a P3. We found that the amplitude of the P3 depended on the distance between standard and…

Habituation--the most basic form of learning--is used to evaluate central nervous system (CNS) maturation and to detect abnormalities in fetal brain development. In the current study, habituation, stimulus specificity and dishabituation of auditory evoked responses were measured in fetuses and newborns using fetal magnetoencephalography (fMEG). An…

Previous research has suggested that people are unable to correctly choose which unfamiliar voice and static image of a face belong to the same person. Here, we present evidence that people can perform this task with greater than chance accuracy. In Experiment 1, participants saw photographs of two, same-gender models, while simultaneously…

Training can improve perceptual sensitivities. We examined whether the temporal dynamics and the incidental versus intentional nature of training are important. Within the context of a birdsong rate discrimination task, we examined whether the sequencing of pretesting exposure to the stimuli mattered. Easy-to-hard (progressive) sequencing of…

This article details the use of field recorders as part of a soundwalk intended to make listening itself an object of scrutiny. A soundwalk is an outing wherein one concentrates on listening to certain aspects of the soundscape, just as one might take a guided tour to admire the landscape. However, as scholars of sound and listening are well…

Results from previous research studies suggest that inclusive settings benefit all learners. However, general education teachers often do not have built in supports within the classroom to meet the needs of students with disabilities. Implementing a sensory diet curriculum (SDC) is one instructional practice that addresses needs of students with…

Purpose: In the present study, the authors aimed to investigate the language confounds of filtered words tests by examining the repetition of real words versus nonsense words as a function of level of filtering. Method: Fifty-five young, native-English-speaking women with normal hearing were required to repeat 80 real-word and 80 nonsense-word…

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibit alterations in sensory processing, including changes in the integration of information across the different sensory modalities. In the current study, we used the sound-induced flash illusion to assess multisensory integration in children with ASD and typically-developing (TD) controls.…

Purpose: Several acoustic cues specify any single phonemic contrast. Nonetheless, adult, native speakers of a language share weighting strategies, showing preferential attention to some properties over others. Cochlear implant (CI) signal processing disrupts the salience of some cues: In general, amplitude structure remains readily available, but…

While to date, multimedia research has examined mainly the learning of texts with accompanying pictures, in the current paper, 2 experiments are presented that examine the multimedia effect for pictures with accompanying spoken text. In Experiment 1, we examined whether learning is better with a multimedia presentation in which pictorial…

Efficient language use involves the capacity to flexibly adjust to varied pronunciations of words. Although children can contend with some accent variability before their second birthday, it is currently unclear when and how this ability reaches its mature state. In a series of five experiments, we examine the developmental trajectory of toddlers'…