Visual preference procedures were used to investigate development of perceptually based subordinate-level categorization in 3- to 7-month-old infants. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that 3- to 4-month-olds did not form category representations for photographic exemplars of subordinate-level classes of cats and dogs (i.e., Siamese vs. Tabby,…

To examine the ontogeny of emotional face processing, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from adults and 7-month-old infants while viewing pictures of fearful, happy, and neutral faces. Face-sensitive ERPs at occipital-temporal scalp regions differentiated between fearful and neutral/happy faces in both adults (N170 was larger for fear)…

A study tested the possibility that children 16-24 months old and 6-7 years old can code distance without the use of landmarks. Younger children sat with their mothers at the side of a sandbox and watched the experimenter hide a toy in the sand. After being distracted, the children looked for the toy in the box. Nine trials were used, with toys…

Two studies investigating figurative expectancy, or the tendency to make perceptual judgments on the basis of temporal patterns, are reported. The results are interpreted as supportive of Piaget's theory of perceptual development. (JMB)

A study investigated how children between ages 5 and 11 perceive three types of film transition. A second purpose was to determine if there was an emergent recognition pattern among these three types of film transition devices: image magnification on a cut (a camera transition), lap dissolve (an optical transition), and clean exit (a subject…

Middle class children and adults (n=632) from eight age levels (mean ages 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 17, 19 and 33 years) were tested with the Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity (the PONS test) to measure accuracy in decoding nonverbal cues. The prediction that nonverbal skills would increasingly differentiate over ages was confirmed. (RH)

The relation between Matching Familiar Figures Test performance and Piaget's construct of perceptual activity was examined with 48 third- and fourth-grade boys. (SB)

Two experiments investigated the role of continuity cues in infants' perception of launching events as causal. Results indicated that younger subjects' perceptions of the particular object may influence perception of causality and that infants' use of cues to causality changes with age. (WP)

Most international adoptees (IA) have rapid catch-up of the delays common at arrival. However, it is not known whether development at arrival predicts later abilities or school readiness. Therefore, we comprehensively evaluated language, fine motor, visual reception (VR), executive function (EF), attention (ATT), and sensory skills (SS) in IA…

Previous research has shown that 3- to 4-month-old infants form a global categorical representation for cats that includes female lions, whereas 6- to 7-month-old infants differentiate between cats and lions. Three experiments using familiarization-novelty preference procedures attempted to determine whether the differentiation of a global…

Three experiments assessed the ability of 2 to 5-year-old children to infer, under very simple task conditions, what another person sees when viewing something from a position other than the children's own. (ST)

The purpose of present experiments with subjects approximately three, five, and seven years of age was to provide additional evidence for the obviousness of the generative transmission principle and to provide initial evidence for the secondary principles of absence and facility. Empirical support was found for each of these selection principles,…

Specifically language-impaired (SLI) children (N=35) were compared with a matched group of 36 non-SLI Ss on tests of speech perception and language ability. Follow-up results indicated that perceptual development occurred in both groups of children. (Author/CL)

Though increasing complexity increased the difficulty of discrimination of form, nursery school, kindergarten, and first grade children were all above chance in performance, older children being superior. The results are discussed in relation to developmental perceptual theory. Portions of this paper were presented at the American Psychological…