A unified theory of visual recognition and attentional selection is developed by integrating the biased-choice model for single-stimulus recognition with a choice model for selection from multielement displays in a race model framework. The theory is applied to findings from previous studies and quantitative fits are encouraging. (SLD)

Three experiments explored the effect of introducing novel information about a central target after a short delay on six-month-old's recognition of the original target, the novel exposure target, and a completely novel one. They found that the infants' memory of a central target is resistant to impairment by conflicting postevent information after…

Presents 7 experiments with 118 undergraduates tracking multiple randomly moving visual elements under various conditions. Observers spontaneously grouped the target elements and directed attention toward this coherent nonrigid virtual object. Results support object-based theories of attention and show that perceptual grouping, a purely…

To gather normative observations on a visual memory test developed by A. Rey (1964), it was administered to 100 temporal-lobe epilepsy patients with memory deficits and 56 outpatients with neurological disorders. Results suggest a cutoff score of 7 on the memory test may alert the clinician to possible factitious memory complaints. (SLD)

Visual search data are given a unified quantitative explanation by a model of how spatial maps in the parietal cortex and object recognition categories in the inferotemporal cortex deploy attentional resources as they reciprocally interact with visual representations in the prestriate cortex. (Author/SLD)

Used event-related potentials to examine infants' ability to form representations of stimuli presented in a haptic modality and to then recognize these stimuli as familiar when the stimuli were subsequently presented in a visual modality. Found that in certain conditions infants encoded the haptically familiarized object, then transferred their…

Results from a study in which 25 deaf children and 25 hearing children completed a vocabulary test and a compound stimulus visual information task support the hypothesis that performance on cognitive tasks is dependent on compatibility of task demands with a coding orientation. (SLD)

The Thatcher illusion, in which the inverted mouth and eyes of a face appear grotesque when upright, but not when the whole configuration is inverted, was studied in 3 experiments involving 89 undergraduates. Results suggest that the illusion represents a disruption of encoding of holistic information when faces are inverted. (SLD)

Three experiments tested the hypothesis that the differences in infants' time of looking at a stimulus are due to infants' differential sensitivity to global and local visual information. Found that both long- and short-looking four-month-old infants were sensitive to both types of information. These results do not support the hypothesis. (MDM)

Visual learning enhances cognitive understanding of abstract concepts. Perception of such ideas as causality is enriched by visual examples. Perceiving should not be separated from thinking. (SK)

Offers three reasons as to why some children encounter difficulty with educational activities involving vision: (1) inability to perceive and hold detail in mind, (2) lack of time given to accomplish task, and (3) introducing too many activities at one time. (MG)

Examined the influence of three factors on five-year-olds' drawings of a transparent mug with its handle turned away. The factors were mug contents; label used to describe the mug; and explicitness of the drawing instructions. Subjects were most likely to produce view-specific drawings when given specific instructions and presented with a mug…

Three experiments involving 107 adults who performed mental rotation tasks explored how location information is incorporated into image representation. Results suggest that image is coded retinotopically in image representations and that there is no spatiotropic transform in the early stages of visual processing. (SLD)

Two experiments involving 12 college students suggest that the visual system codes the temporal relationship between stimuli that occur in close temporal contiguity and that the temporal code determines performance in tasks requiring temporal integration. Potential extension to other visual phenomena is discussed. (SLD)

Examined object concept development in 2- to 4-year olds with a partial replication of a study by Spelke and Kestenbaum (1986). Found that children judged identical entering and exiting figures as involving one object and different figures as involving two objects. Continuity of movement failed to affect judgments of numerical identity. Findings…