The Motor-Free Visual Perception Test: Third edition (MVPT-3; Colarusso & Hammill, 2003) purports to measure overall visual perceptual ability. Task responses require no motor ability, eliminating the effect of motor performance on the overall visual perception score. The test authors suggested that this MVPT-3 characteristic allows for its…

If learning took the form of a vehicle, skills should be considered the gears that allow it to operate. Essential skills like keen observation and active listening are, according to this author, the first and second gears in the learning process. Yet in the age of information, where the name and likeness of a product is typically repeated five to…

A movement therapist reviews ways in which a perceptuo-cognitive approach can help handicapped children in learning and in social adjustment. She identifies specific auditory problems (hearing loss, sound-ground confusion, auditory discrimination, auditory localization, auditory memory, auditory sequencing), visual problems (visual acuity,…

A 3-year study attempted (1) to predict reading achievement through third grade, (2) to establish data for a nonverbal discrimination test, (3) to devise supplementary perceptual instructional programs, and (4) to develop screening devices to assess perceptual abilities and identify potential learning disabilities. In first, second, and third…

The Basic Skills Report for California Community Colleges (2007) stresses the importance of comprehensive training and development opportunities for all faculty (tenured and part-time), administrators and staff members who work with underprepared students. With such a large number of academically underprepared students entering the community…

This booklet is designed to help persons who have elderly family members or who work with older adults understand and help compensate for the sensory changes that occur in later life. It contains sections on vision, hearing, taste and smell, and touch. Discussed in the section on vision are the following: common age-related changes, eye diseases…

How to develop children's awareness of tactile and visual experience is the subject of this book, intended for primary school teachers and parents of young children. The purpose is to present experiences which will stimulate children's curiosity about their world and enrich their perception. Beginning with the first tactile and textural contacts a…

Summarizes the anatomical, physiological, and psychological evidence related to the primate visual system. States that comparison of perceptual abilities with the electrophysiological properties of neurons may help deduce functions of visual areas. (RT)

Investigated the relationship between Vividness of Movement Imagery Questionnaire scores and kinesthetic acuity--the sense of body position and movement--among 10- and 14-year-olds. Found that in the older group, those with high levels of visual movement imagery performed better on measures of kinesthetic acuity; no such effect was found for…

Examined perception of object unity in partial occlusion in 72 infants. Recorded how long subjects looked at a display of complete and incomplete rods. In test and control conditions, infants looked longer at broken rods than at complete rods, suggesting that infants' cognitive, visual, or attentional skills may be insufficient to support…

This investigation into the effects of configural properties (properties determined by the interrelationships existing between component parts) used a selective attention task to determine whether intersection is a primary encoding feature or is constructed after slopes and heights are perceived. The method for encoding feature identification,…

The processing of mental structures in perception appears to be serial, in that viewers can fill in missing parts from an impoverished stimulus following a top down process. To investigate the effects of unfamiliarity, complexity, and legibility on object and layout perception of unfamiliar stimuli, ten subjects were shown one of four ribbon…

This study considered two questions about infants' perception of affective expressions: (1) Can infants distinguish between happiness and anger on the basis of facial motion information alone? (2) Can infants detect a correspondence between happy and angry facial and vocal expressions by different people? A total of 40 infants of 7 months of age…

While researchers have made progress in understanding metaphor comprehension, less is known about the production of metaphoric language. College students (N=129) were asked to use metaphoric comparisons to describe 16 topics. They were told to imagine themselves on a trip, writing home to someone they knew well, either a peer or a child (students…

The tactile-kinesthetic approach to spelling provides a practical teaching device for use with both disabled learners and moderately poor spellers who need to learn a technical or professional vocabulary. This multisensory approach to learning teaches to the student's strengths and places emphasis on finger contact, muscle movement, saying and…