A dual-task paradigm was used to assess attentional processing demands during visual word recognition. By manipulating the difficulty of each task, it is argued that the procedure estimates the attention demands of the memory-access component of word recognition. (Editor)

Discusses research which compared the performance of children with reading disabilities to the performance of normal readers, matched for age and reading level, in a backward-masking letter-identification and localization task. (JM)

Visual discrimination and motor reproduction tasks involving computer-simulated arm movements were administered to 12 adults with mental retardation and a gender-matched control group. The purpose was to examine whether inadequacies in visual perception account for the poorer motor performance of this population. Results indicate both perceptual…

Presents a theoretical model of partial occlusion drawing, along with three experiments. Experiment one studied whether planning or scanning is involved in partial occlusion drawing, and the second explored whether group-encoding of similar objects creates a drawing problem. Experiment three tested predictions derived on the conjoint effects of…

Two experiments examined the effects of common motion, background texture, and orientation on four-month olds' perception of unity of a partially occluded rod. Results indicated that infants' perception of object unity is not dependent on a single visual cue but on a variety of cues including motion, interposition, depth cues, background texture,…

Compared the postural responsiveness of seven-, eight-, and nine-month-old infants. Results indicated greater use of optic flow for postural control after a self-produced locomotor experience. Infants with endogenous (creeping) or artificial (walker) self-produced locomotor experience responded to portions of the optic flow field, whereas…

Discusses using photographs as a teaching method for sociology students. States that photographs have often been considered an art related subject rather than a sociology medium. Focuses on C. Wright Mills's use of Depression era photographs, a teaching method referred to as 'Mills's Imagination.' (KDR)

Explains how digital technology can be used as a tool for teaching students the skills of observation, questioning, information gathering, classifying, predicting, and hypothesis testing. (Author/SOE)

Infants were familiarized with plastic animals from one of two categories (land or sea) that were judged similar or variable by adults. Infants were then tested with novel animals from the same or a different category. Thirteen-month-olds in the similar familiarization condition dishabituated to novel animals of a different category and, to a…

Challenges conclusions about infants' cognitive processing from prior research in favor of the importance of perceptual processes and the effects of stimulus novelty and familiarization. Considers problems with the two-test habituation design of earlier studies and proposes a new methodology that eliminates those problems. Describes a study the…

Two studies investigated development of infants' visual preferences for the human body shape. Results indicated that 18-month-olds had a reliable preference for scrambled body shapes over typical body shapes in line drawings, while 12- and 15-month-olds did not respond differentially. In condition using photographs, only 18-month-olds had reliable…

The article proposes helping visually handicapped clients make optimal use of remaining vision for travel in unmodified environments. Structured discovery learning exercises covering pattern recognition, depth perception, central acuity, and central field vision with peripheral field loss are offered. (Author/DB)

Twenty-five older adults with age-related macular degeneration were separated into one of three groups: in-clinic training, take-home-training, or no-training. After testing, results showed that the ability to distinguish figure from ground is an improvable skill with the take-home group improving the most. (Author/DB)

Visual persistence was investigated in adults with and without dyslexia in order to determine whether dyslexic adults demonstrate problems similar to those found in childhood dyslexia. Results showed that sensitivity of dyslexic adults was impaired when parts of a test stimulus were presented to adjacent retinal areas, suggesting that under…

Visual and auditory coding processes in learning-disabled students (SLDs, n=19) and control students (SCs, n=19) were examined. Analysis of decision latencies revealed that with initial task exposure, SLDs responded more slowly than SCs, but confusability patterns were similar. With practice, overall latencies became comparable, while…