Examines 3-month-old infants' perception of "camouflaged" forms that were only visible when moving. Shows infants effectively use kinetic information to organize visual input in higher-order structures. (HOD)

Preschool children were asked to choose the figure most resembling a real man from three figures drawn according to formulas used by children to depict humans. Results suggest development of drawing systems influences children's conceptions about objects or events. (Author/DB)

Examined the visual scanning patterns of infants ages 6, 10, and 13 weeks who viewed static geometric figures. Measures of fixation dwell-times, saccade lengths, and the choices and sequences of saccadic targets revealed that, although younger infants demonstrated salience-guided scanning behavior, older infants increasingly utilized volitional…

Investigates ability of nine-month-old infants to imitate simple actions with novel objects. Looks at both immediate and deferred imitation. Findings show that imitation in early infancy can span wide enough delays to be of potential service in social development. (Author/RWB)

Examines the effect of different training methods on perceptual learning of impulsive children. A matching to sample method (M), and a differentiation method (D) were used. Data indicated that Ss receiving D training learned to process features distinguishing stimuli; whereas, Ss receiving M training showed no preference for a particular mode of…

Investigation indicates that perceptual inadequacy must be controlled in studies that utilize ambiguous, novel or nonsense designs in stimulus materials. (Authors)

For the age range tested there is a lag between the perception and production of certain facial expressions. (Authors)

This study examined 2- to 3-year-olds' ability to make a pretend-real distinction in the absence of content cues. Children watched two actors side by side. One was really eating, and the other was pretending to eat, but in neither case was information about content available. Following the displays, children were asked to retrieve the real food…

Examines whether three-month-old infants can detect variations within the single expression category of smiling and whether individual differences in infants' sensitivities are related to identifiable mother or infant behaviors. (HOD)

An investigation to account for age changes in the accuracy with which children match auditory to visual series. (Author)

Existing data indicate that newborns are able to recognize individual faces, but little is known about what perceptual cues drive this ability. The current study showed that either the inner or outer features of the face can act as sufficient cues for newborns' face recognition (Experiment 1), but the outer part of the face enjoys an advantage…

Preschool, second-, and sixth-grade children performed developmentally gradated, easy and difficult visual discrimination tasks in a quiet room or with one of two levels of extraneous auditory stimulation. Subjects' errors, response latencies, and glances away from the task were recorded. (Author/RH)

Children often perseverate, repeating prior behaviors when inappropriate. This work tested the roles of verbal labels and stimulus novelty in such perseveration. Three-year-old children sorted cards by one rule and were then instructed to switch to a second rule. In a basic condition, cards had familiar shapes and colors and both rules were stated…

Four-, five-, and six-year-old children were used as subjects in this investigation. There were 192 experimental and 96 control children used, divided equally between the three age groups. The experimental children received a 1-minute pretest exposure procedure in which 1/4 of the children observed 4 two-dimensional stimuli (irregular pentagons),…