It was found, among other things, that rural Ss performed significantly below their mental ages more frequently than urban Ss; and that between the chronological ages of 10 to 14 years, while urban Ss appeared to perform as expected from mental ages, a significant number of rural Ss performed below expectations. (Author/DLS)

Thirteen infants were presented with a moving object under two lighting conditions to investigate the role of vision in early reaching. Infants were tested twice, at 5 and 7.5 months of age. The results suggest that proprioceptive feedback and sight of the target allowed for successful reaching with limited visual information, even in relatively…

Two experiments examined the impact of slow development of processing differences among faces in the spacing among facial features (second-order relations). Computerized tasks involving various face-processing skills were used. Results of experiment with 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds and with adults indicated that slow development of sensitivity to…

Covert visual orienting was measured in 13 twelve-year-old and 11 fifteen-year-old hockey players and in 13 college students with no hockey training. Found that high-skill 15-year-olds were better able than all other groups to take advantage of the general alerting effect produced by the sudden onset of a cue. (MDM)

Adolescents with and without learning disabilities (14, 16, and 18 years old) were tested to determine whether they differed in auditory, visual, and/or multisensory social perception abilities. The adolescents with learning disabilities at all age levels were not as adept at understanding nonverbal social information regardless of whether it was…

Three experiments examined infants' perceptions of their own leg movements as presented to them via online video that varied the spatial orientation and directionality of movement. The infants looked significantly longer and generated significantly more leg activity while looking at the view displaying a left-right inversion than while looking at…

The reaction times, movement times, and final accuracy of hand movements of 6, 8, and 10 year olds that were directed toward visual goals were measured by means of tasks in which direction and amplitude components of movement were required. (RH)

Examined degree to which analytic and holistic modes of processing play a role in children's and adults' categorization of faces. Found a developmental trend from analytic to holistic processing and an effect of face inversion with increasing age. Seven-year-olds processed faces comparably to nonfacial visual stimuli, whereas a growing proportion…

Studied whether patterns of developmental progression in reality monitoring were present in visual and auditory modalities and the role of cross-modal imagery in reality-monitoring tasks. Found scores revealed evidence of developmental progression in both auditory and visual source-monitoring tasks, but no effect of cross-modal imagery. (Author)

Assessed development of infants' sensitivity to two nested amodal temporal relations in audible and visible events. Found that sensitivity to synchrony was present by 4 weeks, remaining stable across age. Sensitivity to composition emerged by 7 weeks, increasing dramatically with age. Noted pattern of increasing specificity in perception…

Examined role of phonological awareness and visual-orthographic skills in Chinese reading acquisition among first, second, third, and fifth graders who had learned the Hanyu Pinyin script. Found that visual skills predicted reading success at lower grades; pinyin knowledge and ability to discriminate homophonic characters predicted reading success…

Infants' ability to track temporarily occluded objects that moved on circular trajectories was investigated in 20 infants using a longitudinal design. They were first seen at 6 months and then every 2nd month until the end of their 1st year. Infants were presented with occlusion events covering 20% of the target's trajectory (effective occlusion…

We studied the development of spatial frames of reference in children aged 3-6 years, who retrieved hidden toys from an array of identical containers bordered by landmarks under four conditions. By moving the child and/or the array between presentation and test, we varied the consistency of the hidden toy with (1) the body, and (2) the testing…

This study examined the relationship between auditory, visual, touch, and oral sensory dysfunction in autism and their relationship to multisensory dysfunction and severity of autism. The Sensory Profile was completed on 104 persons with a diagnosis of autism, 3 to 56 years of age. Analysis showed a significant correlation between the different…

Previous literature on children's visual pattern perception has suggested that preschool children may process hierarchical forms in a manner different from that of older children and adults. Data from some studies suggested that children are holistic processors of pattern information, while other studies characterized children as piecemeal…