Covert visual orienting was measured in 13 twelve-year-old and 11 fifteen-year-old hockey players and in 13 college students with no hockey training. Found that high-skill 15-year-olds were better able than all other groups to take advantage of the general alerting effect produced by the sudden onset of a cue. (MDM)

A study investigated the ability of six individuals with mental retardation to focus on task-relevant elements of complex visual arrays and increased visual-search efficiency. Results found participants were able to limit attention to the task-relevant items on a guided search task, thus greatly reducing overall target identification times.…

The concept of a "picture superiority effect" is discussed. Examined are a number of perceptual considerations that need to be given to picture construction. Parameters which appear to attract the learner's attention to a picture are considered. (CW)

The study with 989 learning-disabled students supported the cognitive-based arithmetic problem-solving model of Dinnel et al. under continuous visual stimulus conditions but suggested a more complex neuropsychological underpinning to arithmetic performance in both visual and aural stimulus conditions. (Author/DB)

Schools should probably spend more time developing student awareness of learning styles than pushing teachers into more inservice workshops on adapting curriculum. The Learning Channel Preference Checklist included in this article allows students to assess their own preferred learning style(s) by choosing statements stressing visual, auditory, or…

A driver performance test revealed that school bus drivers were not adjusting the bus crossover mirrors so that all the pedestrian areas could be seen. In addition, the mirror adjustment was restricted by bracket supports. Describes mirrors that meet state vision standards and how they should be utilized. (MLF)

Adolescents with and without learning disabilities (14, 16, and 18 years old) were tested to determine whether they differed in auditory, visual, and/or multisensory social perception abilities. The adolescents with learning disabilities at all age levels were not as adept at understanding nonverbal social information regardless of whether it was…

Investigates the effect of cognitive style on the performance of college students on proportional reasoning tasks. Reports that students having proportional reasoning can be misled by the presence of field effects and that there was a significant correlation between the test of field independence and the items of proportional reasoning. (Author/YP)

Two authors introduce the topic of visualization in mathematics education. Fourteen articles are briefly described. (YP)

The study investigated two neurophysiologic components of event-related brain potential during auditory and visual target detection tasks with 11 non-retarded autistic children, 9 retarded autistic children, and 16 normal subjects, aged 15-19. Results were consistent with the hypothesis that non-retarded autism involves abnormal attentional and…

This holistic approach to speechreading instruction proposes: enhancement of the child's self-motivation, strategy-based instruction, an interactive processing approach that focuses on meaning and psycholinguistic guessing, bisensory instruction, and a hierarchical continuum beginning with easy, successful activities that gradually increase in…

Assessed ability to perceive the distance at which an object is within reach. Results support early development of spatial decentralization and perspective taking, that is, allocentrism. (ETB)

Three experiments examined infants' perceptions of their own leg movements as presented to them via online video that varied the spatial orientation and directionality of movement. The infants looked significantly longer and generated significantly more leg activity while looking at the view displaying a left-right inversion than while looking at…

Six-month-old African-American infants' expectation of a visual stimulus was related to developmental measures. Reaction time was related to eye fixation in tests that measured visual recognition memory (VRM) and presented objects of different shapes to the infant. Reaction time and infants' stimulus expectation predicted VRM novelty preference.…

Investigated the effect of computer programs that require the use of spatial skills on third and fourth graders' spatial ability. Students who used a software program that required rotation of objects scored better than other students on a measure of figural classification, but not on a measure of object rotation. (BC)