This article proposes and tests a formal cognitive model for the go/no-go discrimination task. In this task, the performer chooses whether to respond to stimuli and receives rewards for responding to certain stimuli and punishments for responding to others. Three cognitive models were evaluated on the basis of data from a longitudinal study…

Abnormalities of colour perception in children with autistic spectrum disorders have been widely reported anecdotally. However, there is little empirical data linking difficulties in colour perception with academic achievement. The Wilkins Rate of Reading Test was administered with and without "Intuitive Coloured Overlays" to 19 children with…

To determine whether or not cognitive tempo influences visual cue preferences in early readers, 65 kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade children were tested on the Matching Familiar Figures (MFF) test and a cue selection nonsense trigram test. It was hypothesized that significant differences would be found in cue selection strategies of…

Two studies investigating auditory information processing abilities of children are reported in this document. The first study analyzed the preferred specific acoustical dimension in an auditory discrimination task of preschool and sixth grade children from low and middle socioeconomic groups. Results indicated that children at both age levels do…

Visual fixations were recorded in newborn, 4-, and 8-week-old human infants as they scanned displays that varied in contour length, size, number, and a new metric, CVAL (based on Contour Variability, Amount and Location). One of the findings was that both contour length and CVAL separately accounted for approximatel1 95 of looking-duration…

Varied conditions under which children aged four to five years matched the area of a rectangle with a given width or height to that of a square. Subjects matched one dimension of the rectangle to one side of the square suggesting that area matches seemed to be based on a side-matching strategy. (Author/AS)

The current research investigates infants' perception of a novel object from a category that is familiar to young infants: key rings. We ask whether experiences obtained outside the lab would allow young infants to parse the visible portions of a partly occluded key ring display into one single unit, presumably as a result of having categorized it…

We have used a genetically tractable model system, the fruit fly "Drosophila melanogaster" to study the interdependence between sensory processing and associative processing on learning performance. We investigated the influence of variations in the physical and predictive properties of color stimuli in several different operant-conditioning…

The experience of an urban waterfront setting can enhance sociocultural education for children, facilitate development of mental and physiological skills, and can function as a playground. The designs of waterfront environments should therefore consider children's needs and enhance both the interaction of children with their environment and…

This exploratory study was conducted to interpret age and individual differences in 48 kindergarteners' and second graders' performance on a referential communication task in light of the Pascual-Leone Theory of Constructive Operations, a neo-Piagetian theory of cognitive development. Stimulus materials were black and white photographs of dogs,…

The main purpose of this study was to investigate whether children's perceptual comprehension of symmetrical numerical displays was greater than their comprehension of asymmetrical numerical displays. Effects of sex, age and socioeconomic status were looked at. Seventy-three kindergarten and first grade children participated in the study.…

This study compared the effects of two types of incidental learning paradigms and examined the influence of different kinds of stimulus relationships on first and sixth graders' selective learning processes. (GO)

Investigates age differences in selective attention in a coded visual search task where subjects were given different types of information about target location before trial onset. (Author/SS)

In a study of attending behavior during the crossover period (12-13 years), when preferences shift from auditory to visual stimuli, females switched their preferences significantly earlier than did males. Besides biological factors, these sex differenes were attributed to differential conditioning of attitudes, reinforcement, and discrimination…

When presented with the option to use a new instructional technology, students often face an approach-avoidance conflict. This study explored promotion and prevention orientations, concepts linked to approach and avoidance in Higgins's regulatory focus theory, in the choice to attend lectures or watch them online. Openness, a core disposition in…