Visual-spatial ability is a multifaceted component of intelligence that has predictive validity for future achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) occupations. Although identification and development of STEM talent is a national priority, visual-spatial ability is rarely measured and relatively neglected in gifted…

Can the mind be divorced from the body? As evidenced by a host of findings in the traditions of grounded cognition and embodiment, sensorimotor experience can exert a powerful influence on what and how people think. The current investigation explores the conditions that temper or enable this influence, proposing that level of mental construal may…

In four experiments we assessed whether visual working memory (VWM) maintains a record of previously processed visual information, allowing old information to be inhibited, and new information to be prioritized. Specifically, we evaluated whether VWM contributes to the inhibition (i.e., visual marking) of previewed distractors in a preview search.…

Six experiments examined the influence of emotional valence on the tagging and enumeration of multiple targets. Experiments 1, 5 and 6 found that there was no difference in the efficiency of tagging/enumerating multiple negative or positive stimuli. Experiment 2 showed that, when neutral-expression face distractors were present, enumerating…

We live in a dynamic environment in which objects change location over time. To maintain stable object representations the visual system must determine how newly sampled information relates to existing object representations, the "correspondence problem". Spatiotemporal information is clearly an important factor that the visual system takes into…

Whereas physiological studies indicate that illusory contours (ICs) are signaled in early visual areas at short latencies, behavioral studies are divided as to whether IC processing can proceed in a fast, automatic, bottom-up manner or whether it requires extensive top-down intracortical feedback or even awareness and cognition. Here, we employ a…

Perceived brightness is well described by Stevens' power function (S. S. Stevens, 1957, On the psychophysical law, "Psychological Review", Vol. 64, pp. 153-181), with a power exponent of 0.33 (the cubic-root function of luminance). The power exponent actually varies across individuals, yet little is known about neural substrates underlying this…

Biological motion is easily perceived by neurotypical observers when encoded in point-light displays. Some but not all relevant research shows significant deficits in biological motion perception among those with ASD, especially with respect to emotional displays. We tested adults with and without ASD on the perception of masked biological motion…

Hostile attribution bias (HAB) has been found to characterize aggressive children. Watching prosocial media has been shown to have positive effects on children, and the general learning model has been used to account for these observations. This study tested the hypotheses derived from this theory that exposure to playful fighting would lead to a…

Recent evidence suggests adults and infants selectively attend to features of action, such as how a hand contacts an object. The current research investigated whether this bias stems from infants' processing of the functional consequences of grasps: understanding that different grasps afford different future actions. A habituation paradigm…

Two separate lines of study have clarified the role of selectivity in conscious access to visual information. Both involve presenting multiple targets and distracters: one "simultaneously" in a spatially distributed fashion, the other "sequentially" at a single location. To understand their findings in a unified framework, we propose a…

Integrating the multisensory features of talking faces is critical to learning and extracting coherent meaning from social signals. While we know much about the development of these capacities at the behavioral level, we know very little about the underlying neural processes. One prominent behavioral milestone of these capacities is the perceptual…

West Syndrome is a severe, early-onset epilepsy syndrome, with significant implications for subsequent neurological and cognitive development. While most children with a prior diagnosis of West Syndrome initially follow a normal developmental trajectory, there is evidence of subsequent emergence of clusters of difficulties, including autism…

Adolescent cannabis use is associated with working memory impairment. The present randomized controlled trial assigned adolescents ages 14 to 21 enrolled in cannabis use treatment to receive either working memory training (experimental group) or a control training (control group) as an adjunctive treatment. Cognitive function, drug use, and other…

Watch any crowded intersection, and you will see how adept people are at reading the subtle movements of one another. While adults can readily discriminate small differences in the direction of a moving person, it is unclear if this sensitivity is in place early in development. Here, we present evidence that 4-year-old children are sensitive to…