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…

Emphasizes the role that motor development may play in determining developmental sequences in other domains, such as haptic or tactile perception and depth perception. Maintains that there is a high degree of fit between the developmental sequence in which certain perceptual sensitivities unfold and the ages at which the corresponding motor…

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…

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…

A fundamental question of perceptual development concerns how infants come to perceive partly hidden objects as unified across a spatial gap imposed by an occluder. Much is known about the time course of development of perceptual completion during the first several months after birth, as well as some of the visual information that supports unity…

These proceedings contain 37 papers from 51 authors noted for their expertise in the field of visual literacy. The collection is divided into three sections: (1) "Examining Visual Literacy" (including, in addition to a 7-year International Visual Literacy Association bibliography covering the period from 1983-1989, papers on the perception of…

The author discusses the role of perceptual training in the education of young perceptually handicapped children. Distinctions are drawn between perception and awareness, and the necessity of stimulation to encourage infant and child learning is emphasized. Commonalities between perception and learning are underscored. The author stresses that…

A LONGITUDINAL STUDY WAS PERFORMED WHICH FOLLOWED THREE GROUPS OF CHILDREN (CULTURALLY DISADVANTAGED, AVERAGE, AND CULTURALLY ADVANTAGED) THROUGH GRADE THREE IN AN ATTEMPT TO DETERMINE THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF CERTAIN PERCEPTUAL FACTORS ON SUCCESS OR FAILURE IN BEGINNING READING. INSTRUMENTS USED WERE SELECTED TO IDENTIFY…

The ability of 5-month-old infants to recognize two-dimensional (pictorial) representations of three-dimensional objects was investigated. Subjects were 24 5-month-old infants. The novelty preference technique was employed: all infants were familiarized with a three-dimensional object--a doll. Following familiarization, three novelty tests were…

An experiment was performed to show that infants perceive auditory and visual stimuli within a common space and that they perceive the sound as an attribute of the visual object. Subjects were 22 infants aged 3 to 5 months. Each infant was presented with a toy that moved in a small arc from side to side of a small window at the rate of one arc per…

Dimensional preference tasks in both visual and haptic modalities with three dimensional stimuli varying in form, size, color, or texture were presented to 64 children. There were 16 subjects at each of four grade levels: preschool, kindergarten, grade 1, and grade 3. On each trial, the subject was presented three stimuli and asked to tell the…

Two groups of children took part in this longitudinal study of eidetic imagery (EI). The New Haven sample consisted of 12 elementary school children, and the Rochester sample consisted of 23 children (aged 7 to 11 years at the beginning of the study). The study was designed to find out some of the qualities of EI and its relationship to memory. An…

The objective of the investigation was to develop and test procedures for training children in coordination of projective space. (Projective concepts involve apparent distance, relative position, shape of figures, and other topological factors. A person with a command of projective space sees objects as a coordinated system of figures in space.) A…

Perception has become an important term in recent literature on reading problems and their solutions. However, the relationship between perception and reading has not been clarified. Tests of visual perception often focus on skills such as copying geometric designs which have little or nothing to do with reading skills or readiness. Researchers…