The neural mechanisms underlying perceptual learning are still under investigation. Eureka effect is a form of rapid, long-lasting perceptual learning by which a degraded image, which appears meaningless when first seen, becomes recognizable after a single exposure to its undegraded version. We used online interference by focal 10-Hz repetitive…

Recently, Redford (2010) found that monkeys seemed to exert metacognitive control in a category-learning paradigm. Specifically, they selected more trials to view as the difficulty of the category-learning task increased. However, category-learning difficulty was determined by manipulating the family resemblance across the to-be-learned exemplars.…

We explored the amount and timing of temporal synchrony necessary to facilitate prenatal perceptual learning using an animal model, the bobwhite quail. Quail embryos were exposed to various audiovisual combinations of a bobwhite maternal call paired with patterned light during the late stages of prenatal development and were tested postnatally for…

Can infants use interposition and line junction cues to infer three-dimensional (3D) structure? Previous work has shown that in a task that required 4-month-olds to discriminate between static two-dimensional (2D) pictures of possible and impossible cubes, infants exhibited a spontaneous preference for displays of the impossible cube but left open…

We show that simple perceptual competences can emerge from an internal simulation of action effects and are thus grounded in behavior. A simulated agent learns to distinguish between dead ends and corridors without the necessity to represent these concepts in the sensory domain. Initially, the agent is only endowed with a simple value system and…

Holistic processing of faces is characterized by encoding of the face as a single stimulus. This study employed a composite face task to examine whether holistic processing varies when attention is restricted to the top as compared to the bottom half of the face, and whether evidence of holistic processing would be observed in event-related…

Differential looking and manipulation were assessed in 44 six-month-old infants who were presented with familiar and novel visual stimuli. The infants looked at the novel stimuli longer. (ST)

The most common behavioral technique used to study infant perception, cognition, language, and social development is some variant of looking time. Since its inception as a reliable method in the late 1950s, a tremendous increase in knowledge about infant competencies has been gained by inferences made from measures of looking time. Here we examine…

This study was designed to determine whether the effectiveness of stimulus intensity declines with age. The results indicated that infants 10 weeks and younger responded on the basis of size, while infants between 10 and 24 weeks looked more at a bull's-eye than at a striped pattern regardless of size. (JMB)

The present study examined two key aspects of young children's ability to explain human behaviour in a mentalistic way. First, we explored desires that are of a level of difficulty comparable with that of false beliefs. For this purpose, the so-called "alternative desires" were created. Second, we examined how children's psychological…

Examines discrimination of geometric shapes by three-month-old infants who were presented with geometric stimuli moving laterally at two different velocities. Finds that subjects discriminate between geometric forms at velocities that, according to previous findings, might interfere with shape discrimination. Discusses the possible interactive…

To examine the ontogeny of emotional face processing, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from adults and 7-month-old infants while viewing pictures of fearful, happy, and neutral faces. Face-sensitive ERPs at occipital-temporal scalp regions differentiated between fearful and neutral/happy faces in both adults (N170 was larger for fear)…

This study tested the hypothesis that newborns selectively orient toward angular elements in their visual field. Subjects were 36 awake and alert infants under 6 days of age. For each newborn, the study compared visual attention to three separately presented stimulus patterns: a complete outline triangle, only the sides of this triangle, and only…