Premature infants with subependymal or intraventricular hemorrhage took longer to habituate on a habituation task, and scored lower on a measure of mental development, than did other premature infants or full-term infants. Both groups of premature infants were less successful than full-term infants on an object permanence task. (BC)

This study examined whether 49 adults with mild or moderate mental retardation could perform reliably enough on the Penn Facial Discrimination Task to make this a useful research measure for evaluating visual-receptive processing. Results found subjects generally performed well above chance level, that retest reliability was reasonably high, and…

The Perky effect, identified in 1910, is the reduction in performance from the no-imagery to the imagery condition. A series of experiments with over 100 undergraduates and graduates shows that the reduction reflects a true reduction in visual sensitivity, not just alteration in criteria for responding or response organization. (SLD)

The relationship between general intelligence and the ability to ignore irrelevant stimuli appearing in the same visual field as an attended target was studied for 167 college students. Results indicate that psychometric intelligence does not tap visual focused attention. (SLD)

This study with 47 university students having reading disabilities, 15 students with other learning disabilities, and 12 nondisabled readers found that most nondisabled subjects used a phonological rehearsal strategy for words and nonwords, whereas students with reading disabilities consistently used a strategy of visual scanning for these tasks.…

Shows that color blindness, whether partial or total, inhibits literacy acquisition. Offers a case study of a third grader with impaired color vision. Presents a review of literature on the topic. Notes that people with color vision deficits are often unaware of the handicap. (RS)

In three experiments, children of three through six years of age were generally better able to reproduce a perceiver's perspective if a visual cue in the perceiver's line of sight was salient. Children had greater difficulty when the task hinged on attending to configural cues. Availability of distinctive cues affixed to objects facilitated…

The effect of background color on the perception of color by students is discussed. Explanations on why students only see certain colors when viewing colored marks on a blackboard through different color filters are provided. (KR)

A large body of data is reviewed to support a new theory of motion perception described by S. Grossberg and M. E. Rudd (1989). The Motion Boundary Contour System is used to explain classical and recent data about motion perception that have not been explained by other models. (SLD)

Event-related potentials (ERPs) of children and adults were measured while subjects observed pictures of facial expressions. Adults had greater ERP responses to happy than to angry faces, whereas children had greater ERP responses to angry than to happy faces. (BC)

This article describes a visual assessment procedure (VAP) which evaluates capacity, attention, and processing (CAP) of infants and preschool children with visual impairments. The two-level battery considers, first, visual capacity and basic visual attention and, second, visual perceptual and cognitive abilities. A theoretical analysis of the…

Describes the habits of human reasoning that distort designers' abilities to intuit how users will understand and respond to graphics. Advocates two solutions: investigating scientifically how visuals communicate to viewers, and using user-based iterative design to explore user's reactions while developing design prototypes. (SR)

Tested infants' latency in turning toward stimulus patterns and the duration of their initial fixation. Results showed that "turning latency" fell in a linear manner from 36 to 120 weeks after conception. Fixation time fell abruptly at 53 weeks. Preterm and full-term infants showed the same developmental trends. (BC)

Examined preschool children's inferences about the likely appearance of a target figure based on information about the figure's occupation or personality traits. Without explicit gender-category information, girls' performance on gender-consistent and gender-inconsistent trials was equivalent; boys performed better on same-sex attributes. With…

Two experiments examined the origins of joint visual attention in 6- to 11-month-olds with a training procedure. Results indicated that joint visual attention does not reliably appear prior to 10 months; from about 8 months, a gaze-following response can be learned; and simple learning is not sufficient as the mechanism through which joint…