A list of 105 adjectives which describe affective qualities of environments was developed and presented to 323 subjects. Factor analysis of subjects' ratings produced two bipolar factors that correlated with reactions of arousal and pleasure to various environments. (Author/WB)

Concludes that skilled adult readers may use the meanings of words ahead of fixation to enrich their interpretation of a text or use those words more simply as markers to guide further eye movements to the location of the next useful fixation. (FL)

Prekindergarten children were given a perceptual discrimination task using letterlike forms and their transformations. The magnitude of the relation to subsequent achievement in reading varied according to the difficulty of a transformation. More easily discriminated transformations were associated with higher correlations. Patterns were similar…

College art majors, art education majors, and nonart majors were compared on measures of brain hemisphere dominance, general intelligence, brain functioning, visual perceptual differentiation, grade point average, flexibility-rigidity, and personal-social adjustment. (SJL)

Reports a study which shows that subjects can make discriminative judgments of a speaker's height and weight from his tape recorded speech. This ability is not altered by the filtering of the speech signal. (PMJ)

Applies Brunswik's lens model to a study linking environmental assessment with environmental perception and cognition. Gauges the ecological validity of cues generated by technical and observational assessments of residential streets in San Francisco for three conditions: traffic volume, family income, and residents' concern about crime.…

It is argued that a young child's perceptual skills form the basis for all future conceptual and mathematical learning. An experiment supports the argument. (MP)

The authors review current brain hemisphere laterality research in relation to music education, concluding that evidence is still insufficient to determine the functions of the left brain and right brain in music perception. They also consider the effects of training on the cerebral processing of music stimuli. (SJL)

Reports an investigation of the relationship between visual ordering and perception as determined by cognitive tasks and a child's understanding of reading readiness concepts. (FL)

A uniprocessor, unidimensional model, based on Krueger's noisy-operator theory, was fitted satisfactorily to data from four published studies of tone comparison. The model predicts faster response time on different judgments because of heterogeneity of difference. (Author/CP)

The systematic study of reading dates from the beginnings of experimental psychology in the 1880's. A revival of experimental work began in the 1950's. The research community needs a more convincing justification for continued government support of reading research than one based on potential links to classroom practice. (Author/JM)

A study involving seven adults with sensorineural hearing loss and seven controls investigated perceptual weight given format transition and relative amplitude information for labeling fricative place of articulation perception and integration of relative amplitude and formant transition cues. Subjects had lower interaction terms for F2 transition…

Twenty children, aged 7-12, with severe visual impairments completed a series of visual tasks requiring interpretation, analysis, manipulation, and visual motor coordination. Findings are discussed in terms of total performance, individual task performance, performance of younger versus older children, and performance of good versus poor readers.…

Examines social relationships between African Americans and Asian Americans living in the same geographical area. Perceptions and the impact of these perceptions on intergroup interaction are examined. Possible cognitive processes linked to interethnic interaction are considered, as are behavioral responses to such cognition. (GR)

Examines the potential contribution of different neural systems to developmental change in the duration of visual fixation, and the individual differences in that variable that are predictive of subsequent cognitive function. Presents hypotheses concerning two specific and independent neural systems and how they might contribute to individual and…