Recent research has demonstrated that Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects the visual sensory pathways, producing a variety of visual deficits, including the capacity to perceive structure-from-motion (SFM). Because the sensory areas of the adult brain are known to retain a large degree of plasticity, the present study was conducted to explore whether…

The nucleus accumbens (NAc) plays a role in hedonic reactivity to taste stimuli. Learning can alter the hedonic valence of a given stimulus, and it remains unclear how the NAc encodes this shift. The present study examined whether the population response of NAc neurons to a taste stimulus is plastic using a conditioned taste aversion (CTA)…

This study characterized the profile of pragmatic abilities among 24 children with hearing loss (HL) aged 6.3-9.4 years, 13 using hearing aids (HAs) and 11 using cochlear implants (CIs), in comparison to those of 13 hearing children with similar chronological and language ages. All the children with HL used spoken language, attended regular…

Research on noise shows that a variety of effects including stress, annoyance, and performance decrements exist for certain types of sounds. Noise interferes with cognitive ability by overloading the attentional system or simply distracting from efficient encoding or rehearsal, but very little research has extended those findings to recreation or…

The objective of the present study was to assess the development of luminance- and texture-defined static form perception in school-aged children. This was done using an adapted Landolt-C technique where C-optotypes were defined by either luminance or texture information, the latter necessitating extra-striate neural processing to be perceived.…

The sensitivity of size perception to context has been used to distinguish between "vision for action" and "vision for perception", and to study cultural, psychopathological, and developmental differences in perception. The status of that evidence is much debated, however. Here we use a rigorous double dissociation paradigm based on the Ebbinghaus…

Purpose: This study examined the use of different acoustic cues in auditory perception of consonant and vowel contrasts by profoundly deaf children with a cochlear implant (CI) in comparison to age-matched children and young adults with normal hearing. Method: A speech sound categorization task in an XAB format was administered to 15 children ages…

It is widely assumed that children with autism have a diminished understanding of the perception-knowledge relationship, as a specific manifestation of a theory of mind (ToM) impairment. However, such a conclusion may not be justified on the basis of previous studies, which have suffered from significant methodological weaknesses. The current…

Purpose: Attaining speech accuracy requires that children perceive and attach meanings to vocal output on the basis of production system capacities. Because auditory perception underlies speech accuracy, profiles for children with hearing loss (HL) differ from those of children with normal hearing (NH). Method: To understand the impact of auditory…

Evidence suggests that children with selective mutism (SM) display significant aberrations in auditory efferent activity at the brainstem level that may underlie inefficient auditory processing during vocalization, and lead to speech avoidance. The objective of the present study was to explore auditory filtering processes at the cortical level in…

This study describes the development of two instruments to investigate the extent to which students are engaged in scientific inquiry. As a result of the instrument development process employed, each finalized instrument consisted of 20-items separated into five categories. Both instruments were found to be internally consistent, with high…

The aim of the study was to examine the temporal characteristics of information processing in individuals with high-functioning autism and Asperger's disorder using a rapid serial visual presentation paradigm. The results clearly showed that such people demonstrate an attentional blink of similar magnitude to comparison groups. This supports the…

The collection of articles in this special issue and related studies over the past decade provides a fine example of the substantial progress that has been made in our understanding and remediation of mathematical learning disabilities and difficulties since 1993 (Geary, 1993). The originally proposed procedural and retrieval deficits have been…

Aim: The aim of this study was to assess whether any memory impairment co-occurring with language impairment is global, affecting both verbal and visual domains, or domain specific. Method: Visual and verbal memory, learning, and processing speed were assessed in children aged 6 years to 16 years 11 months (mean 9y 9m, SD 2y 6mo) with current,…

This paper presents a case study of students' awareness, experiences and perceptions of research in a "new" university in the UK. The findings are based on a questionnaire of almost 200 students and five small group interviews. Many of the students participating in this research perceived clear benefits to their learning from staff…