The purpose of this paper is to set out a descriptive model in which the relative dominance of a stimulus dimension is related to the form of attention it receives. (Author/DB)

Eighteen profoundly retarded men (mean age 41) were given repeated presentations of a two-choice visual discrimination using a modified Wisconsin General Test Apparatus and two probabilistic reinforcement schedules counterbalanced for order. (Author)

The ability of forty 8-week-old infants to discriminate between projected-stereograms with and without retinal disparity was tested with an habituation-dishabituation paradigm. Results were interpreted as indicating that the infants could discriminate between stimuli when the only difference between them was binocular disparity. (MS)

A total of 45 fifth grade students were the subjects of an experiment offering support for a component of learning strategy (memory imagery). Various theoretical explanations of the image-tracing phenomenon are considered, including depth of processing, dual coding and frequency. (MS)

Visual discrimination and motor reproduction tasks involving computer-simulated arm movements were administered to 12 adults with mental retardation and a gender-matched control group. The purpose was to examine whether inadequacies in visual perception account for the poorer motor performance of this population. Results indicate both perceptual…

Two experiments examined the effects of common motion, background texture, and orientation on four-month olds' perception of unity of a partially occluded rod. Results indicated that infants' perception of object unity is not dependent on a single visual cue but on a variety of cues including motion, interposition, depth cues, background texture,…

Compared tendencies of adults and rhesus monkeys to escape adaptively when uncertain. In a visual discrimination task using a threshold paradigm, humans and monkeys escaped trials in which they were uncertain of the stimulus. In a similar task with constant stimuli, some humans escaped adaptively, but one escaped infrequently and non-optimally,…

Infants were familiarized with plastic animals from one of two categories (land or sea) that were judged similar or variable by adults. Infants were then tested with novel animals from the same or a different category. Thirteen-month-olds in the similar familiarization condition dishabituated to novel animals of a different category and, to a…

Conducted study on Alzheimer's unit to test seven different visual barrier conditions for reducing patient exits. Findings indicated that exiting was eliminated under two conditions. Results suggest visual agnosia, the inability to interpret what the eye sees, may be used as tool in managing wandering behavior of Alzheimer's patients. (Author/NB)

Twenty-five older adults with age-related macular degeneration were separated into one of three groups: in-clinic training, take-home-training, or no-training. After testing, results showed that the ability to distinguish figure from ground is an improvable skill with the take-home group improving the most. (Author/DB)

Visual persistence was investigated in adults with and without dyslexia in order to determine whether dyslexic adults demonstrate problems similar to those found in childhood dyslexia. Results showed that sensitivity of dyslexic adults was impaired when parts of a test stimulus were presented to adjacent retinal areas, suggesting that under…

Studied 4- to 10-year-olds' familiarity judgments of peers. Found that, contrary to adults, external facial features were key. Also found that the switch to adult recognition pattern takes place after the ninth year. (ETB)

Signal detection experiments with 21 college students suggest that streakiness is a property of auditory and visual discrimination in that correct and incorrect responses have a positive sequential dependency. Monte-Carlo simulations of observed data sequences suggest that streaky performance results from wavelike variations in perceptual and…

Five investigations examined three- and four-year olds' conceptions of the relationship between pictures and their referents. Results indicated that preschool children have difficulty holding in mind the distinct properties of picture and real referent, just as they tend to confuse the literal and intended meanings of utterances. (TJQ)

In three experiments, nine-month-old infants were trained to fixate on a particular feature in a pair of stimuli that varied along three dimensions. In a fourth experiment, infants were trained to fixate on a stimulus compound until reaching a learning criterion. Infants' discrimination learning under these conditions implied an ability to attend…