The processing-capacity and arousal-level effects on choice between computer-generated "melodies" differing in complexity were compared in a divided-attention situation. (Editor)

Presents results of two experiments which measured difficulty of learning vowel and consonant sounds and revealed significantly more correct responses for consonant sounds than for vowel sounds. (JM)

Examines the link between music and language development in early childhood. Investigates three aspects in developmental processes: (1) early sound perception; (2) premusical and prelinguistic vocalization; and (3) the emergence of singing and speech. Discusses linguistic and musical environmental stimulation such as baby talk and lullabies.…

This study examined the effects of the cochlear hearing loss of 12 adults on two measures of sequential processing that rely on spectro-temporal information: a gap-detection discrimination task and a melody recognition task. It was concluded that cochlear hearing loss deleteriously affects the processes underlying perceptual organization of…

Performance of 32 children with language impairment and 22 without, on perception and imitation of synthesized syllables, found that phoneme perception ability of children with only expressive impairment fell between that of controls and expressive-receptive impaired children. Both groups of subjects had difficulty with phonological memory, but…

Investigated the ability to discriminate the middle and low tone contrasts in Thai in two groups of native English speakers and a control group of native Thai speakers. The first group were native English speakers who had no prior experience with Thai, the second group were experienced learners of Thai. Variables included experience with Thai,…

Ten listeners with normal hearing and ten older adults with sensorineural hearing impairment were tested on a speech-recognition task requiring across-frequency integration of temporal speech information. Listeners with hearing impairment performed more poorly with synchronous across-frequency information, suggesting a particular difficulty…

This study examined whether the perceptual weights of 40 children and adults with hearing loss differ from those of normal hearing counterparts. Results revealed child-adult differences in overall performance and also revealed an effect of hearing loss. However, the pattern of perceptual weights was similar across groups under most conditions.…

Eighty-two elementary school children with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and dyslexia made more errors than 83 normally reading children with ADD on a test of rhyme and alliteration. A subgroup of dyslexic children who were sensitive to rhyme and alliteration scored higher than other dyslexic children on a test of spatial ability. (Author/DB)

Visual and auditory coding processes in learning-disabled students (SLDs, n=19) and control students (SCs, n=19) were examined. Analysis of decision latencies revealed that with initial task exposure, SLDs responded more slowly than SCs, but confusability patterns were similar. With practice, overall latencies became comparable, while…

Focuses on investigations of infant sensation and perception over the past 25 years. Describes the knowledge base concerning the sensory and perceptual world of the infant in the mid-1960s. Methodological highlights in the study of vision and audition are covered. (RJC)

Children with language learning problems (N=151) and normally learning children (N=143) were tested on fine-grained auditory discrimination tasks that required responding to small acoustic differences. Performance on the auditory tasks was highly correlated with group placement suggesting that fine-grained auditory discrimination makes a major…

A course in non-visual art offered as part of a general education requirement has both blind and blindfolded students exploring aspects of art, primarily tactile and auditory, usually de-emphasized in art education. (MSE)

Examined the processing of speech and nonspeech sounds by 23 reading-disabled children. Children were required to identify and report the order of pairs of stimuli. Children had difficulty with very brief tones and stop consonant syllables at short interstimulus intervals. (SAK)

A 2-alternative forced-choice task was used to measure the ability of 18 children (ages 3 to 5) to detect varying levels of sinusoids in noise. Results showed that, on average, the children's thresholds were higher and the slopes of their psychometric functions were shallower than those of adults, though between-subjects variability was large.…