The aim of this study was to analyse whether specialised musical training influences auditory discrimination, working memory, learning strategies and academic performance. Sixty students (30 with at least four years of musical training and 30 without) of the same socioeconomic level were compared. Significant differences were found between…

In the current study, we examined the developmental course of the perception of non-native tonal contrast. We tested 4, 6 and 12-month-old Dutch infants on their discrimination of Chinese low-rising tone and low-dipping tone using the visual fixation paradigm. The infants were tested in two conditions that differed in terms of degree of…

Adult musicians show superior auditory discrimination skills when compared to non-musicians. The enhanced auditory skills of musicians are reflected in the augmented amplitudes of their auditory event-related potential (ERP) responses. In the current study, we investigated longitudinally the development of auditory discrimination skills in…

Purpose: This preliminary investigation explored potential cognitive and linguistic sources of variance in 2- year-olds' speech-sound discrimination by using the toddler change/no-change procedure and examined whether modifications would result in a procedure that can be used consistently with younger 2-year-olds. Method: Twenty typically…

In the present study the effects of visual, auditory, and audio-visual presentation formats on memory for thematically constructed lists were assessed in individuals with intellectual disability and mental age-matched children. The auditory recognition test included target items, unrelated foils, and two types of semantic lures: critical related…

Schools located near to airports are exposed to high levels of noise which can cause cognitive, health, and hearing problems. Therefore, this study sought to explore whether this noise may cause auditory language processing (ALP) problems in primary school learners. Sixty-one children attending schools exposed to high levels of noise were matched…

Five studies investigated children's perception of scale and contour in melodies. It was found that young children can detect key transposition changes in familiar and unfamiliar melodies and are sensitive to melodic contour over transformations that preserve it, yet distinguish spontaneously between melodies with the same contour and different…

Investigated developmental change in duration of auditory sensory memory for tonal frequency by measuring mismatch negativity, an electrophysiological component of the auditory event-related potential that is relatively insensitive to attention and does not require a behavioral response. Findings among children and adults suggest that there are…

This study was designed to test two alternate hypotheses regarding the meaning of increased lateral head movements in infants during experiments in which the mothers' voices were displaced from their faces. One interpretation is that the lateral looking responses of the infants are attributable to maturational effects on the infants' physiological…

Infants were classified as high or low in differential vocal responsiveness (DVR), and tested for degree of response to stimulation by a stranger and to stimulation by their mothers. The infants' DVR classification was related to scores on the Stanford-Binet and the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities. (Author/SS)

Infants who were in darkness were presented with objects that made sounds. Objects were within reach and out of reach. Infants reached into the target area more often when the object was in reach than when the object was beyond reach. Infants reached correctly in the dark for objects placed off midline. (BC)

Addresses questions about infant perceptual ability and the possibility of its decline as a function of development in the absence of specific experience. Compares English-speaking adults, Hindi-speaking adults, and 7-month-old infants on their ability to discriminate two pairs of natural Hindi (non-English) speech contrasts. (Author/RH)

Five studies examined the contributions of syllable-ordering and rhythmic properties of syllable strings to 6- and 9-month-old infants' speech segmentation. Results indicate that the capacity for integrating multiple sources of information in speech perception emerges between 6 and 9 months, in rough synchrony with the emergence of integration in…

Studied the ability of 8- and 11-year olds, and college-age subjects, to allocate attention rapidly. Older subjects were better able to reallocate attention. The developmental change in the reallocation of attention appears to be continuous and quantitative. Improvement is linked to the ability to use active attentional strategies. (Author/GH)

This experiment investigated relational complexity and relational shift in judgments of auditory patterns. Pitch and duration values were used to construct two-note perceptually similar sequences (unary relations) and four-note relationally similar sequences (binary relations). It was hypothesized that 5-, 8- and 11-year-old children would perform…