Investigations of concurrent task and modality switching effects have to date been studied under conditions of uni-modal stimulus presentation. As such, it is difficult to directly compare resultant task and modality switching effects, as the stimuli afford both tasks on each trial, but only one modality. The current study investigated task and…

School nurses can play a key role in the detection of significant refractive error. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of a statewide school nurse vision screening program by evaluating the outcomes of screening among first, third, and fifth graders in 10 schools in North Carolina during the 2009-2010 school year. Of the 2,726…

A retinally stabilized object readily undergoes perceptual fading and disappears from consciousness. This startling phenomenon is commonly believed to arise from local bottom-up sensory adaptation to edge information that occurs early in the visual pathway, such as in the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus or retinal ganglion cells. Here…

In 1912, Max Wertheimer published his paper on phi motion, widely recognized as the start of Gestalt psychology. Because of its continued relevance in modern psychology, this centennial anniversary is an excellent opportunity to take stock of what Gestalt psychology has offered and how it has changed since its inception. We first introduce the key…

Introduction: This study characterizes self-reported functional vision goals and the use of low vision resources (for example, services and devices) in ophthalmology clinic patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and comorbid depressive symptoms. Methods: From July 2009 to February 2013, we assessed 188 consecutive patients (age 65+;…

Although good visual capacity is essential for children's learning, we have limited understanding of the various visual functions among school starters. In order to extend this knowledge, a small-scale study was undertaken involving 24 preschool children age 5-6 years who completed a test battery originally designed for visual impairment…

This article presents a model for understanding the development of visual perception from a dynamic systems theory perspective. It contrasts to a hierarchical or reductionist model that is often found in the occupational therapy literature. In this proposed model vision and ocular motor abilities are not foundational to perception, they are seen…

Readers continuously receive parafoveal information about the upcoming word in addition to the foveal information about the currently fixated word. Previous research (Inhoff, Radach, Starr, & Greenberg, 2000) showed that the presence of a parafoveal word that was similar to the foveal word facilitated processing of the foveal word. We used the…

Research on joint attention and language learning has focused primarily on cues requiring visual access. However, this narrow focus cannot account for the emergence of language among some congenitally blind children who develop language on the same developmental timescale as their sighted peers. Findings from this longitudinal, retrospective study…

The Vision Partnership is an alliance between the Houston Independent School District (HISD) and One Sight Vision Partnership that began in 2009 to address the vision and vision-related health needs of students who cannot afford eye care services. Campus-based vision screenings are offered to district students at all grade levels at no cost. In…

In this essay, I explore a child's experience of engaging with animals, and through animals, humans in her life. For children and adults alike, most of life happens in mundane moments. Yet, bumped along through time and mundane everydayness, we are periodically struck by something. This is a story about a child's experience of…

We conducted a haptic search experiment to investigate the influence of the Gestalt principles of proximity, similarity, and good continuation. We expected faster search when the distractors could be grouped. We chose edges at different orientations as stimuli because they are processed similarly in the haptic and visual modality. We therefore…

Consumer-grade virtual reality has recently become available for both desktop and mobile platforms and may redefine the way that students learn. However, the decision regarding which device to utilise within a curriculum is unclear. Desktop-based VR has considerably higher setup costs involved, whereas mobile-based VR cannot produce the quality of…

A study of the concurrent relationships between naming speed, phonological awareness and spelling ability in 146 children in Years 3 and 4 of state-funded schools in South-East England (equivalent to US Grades 2 and 3) is reported. Seventy-two children identified as having normal phonological awareness but reduced rapid automatised naming (RAN)…

The functional distinction between vision for perception and vision for action is well documented in the mature visual system. Ganel and colleagues recently provided direct evidence for this dissociation, showing that while visual processing for perception follows Weber's fundamental law of psychophysics, action violates this law. We tracked the…