Infants' responses to male and female faces and their preferences for happy versus fearful faces were studied to extend findings indicating that infants at 7 months can generalize discrimination between expressions of happiness and surprise across four different female models' faces. In the first experiment, a paired-comparison procedure was used…

Three experiments explored effects of stimulus and task factors on tendency to categorize according to taxonomic relations when those relations conflict with appearances. When provided with information that constrained categorization, preschoolers and adults reliably based their decisions on taxonomic relations between physically dissimilar items.…

THE PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY WAS TO DETERMINE THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF FIVE VARIABLES (INITIAL INSTRUCTIONS, REWARD, LETTER SIZE, TYPE OF WARM-UP, AND FEEDBACK) ON KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN'S PERFORMANCE OF A LETTER DISCRIMINATION TASK. IT HAS BEEN ARGUED THAT ATTENTION IS THE KEY FACTOR IN LETTER DISCRIMINATION. THE PRESENT STUDY PROPOSES THAT A…

A number of hypotheses about infants' delayed search accuracy have been based upon the notion that a location associated with repeated retrieval of an object attains privileged status. However, a test of performance in 12- and 15-month-old infants showed them to be indifferent to location. (Author/RH)

To assess the performance characteristics of synthetic and leather basketballs, individuals were asked to discriminate perceptually between the leather and synthetic basketballs under four treatment conditions. Rebound characteristics on five playing surfaces were measured. Leather basketballs rebounded significantly higher; no significant…

Evaluates preschoolers' ability to distinguish left-right mirror-images of objects on a memory task and ability to name rows of objects on a page in a consistent lateral direction. Abilities were assessed first without specific instructions on the relevance of left-right information and then with instructions. (Author/AS)

Human recognition behavior is influenced by the phenomenon of shape constancy, which occurs when the shape of an object is correctly perceived regardless of the orientation of the object in space. The research reported here tests the validity of the shape-slant invariance hypothesis, a theoretical formulation of the phenomenon of shape constancy.…

Research indicated that visual discrimination training could compensate for the impulsive response style of first-graders on reading tests. (GW)

Cites studies showing that impulsive children can perform more reflectively with respect to response time and/or accuracy if exposed to reflective models, self-verbalization strategies, increased concern over performance accuracy, and training in attention deployment, delay of response and visual discrimination. (BF/JH)

Used shift-rate recovery method in three experiments to examine extent to which 6-month-olds find perceptual cues such as density and length useful in discrimination of linearly arranged sets of large numbers of objects. Found that infants can discriminate between large number sets by relying on absolute cues such as density and on relative cues…