Advances in the neurosciences have created exciting possibilities for interdisciplinary collaboration. The benefits of and barriers to collaboration with developmental psychology are discussed in this introduction to a special section of Child Development. (BN)

Sex hormones in the prenatal brain of humans influence the subsequent sexual status or orientation of the individual as bisexual, heterosexual, or homosexual. Postnatal socialization is another contributing factor. Sexual orientation is not under the direct governance of chromosomes and genes. (Author/VM)

The review examined recent research concerning cerebral specialization, especially dichotic listening studies, in Down syndrome individuals. A model of cerebral specialization is proposed that stresses the biological dissociation between speech perception and speech production or other complex movements. (Author/DB)

It is argued that creative behavior is a product of the uniquely human capacity to will and requires activation of the prefrontal lobe "cells of will" to facilitate the harmonious functioning of all parts of the brain. (DB)

Electrodermal activity to auditory stimuli was compared in 20 autistic children and their matched retarded and normal controls (N=80). The autistic children were virtually indistinguishable in individual features of electrodermal activity from controls when both chronological and mental age comparisons were accounted for. (Author/CL)

Presents a hypothesis about the biochemical processes involved in memory storage. The postulated mechanism is initiated by a signal that is unusual but not unlikely to occur and produces an irreversible change in a key component of synaptic chemistry. Other features of the mechanism and experiments supporting the hypothesis are considered. (JN)

Nine children with Down's syndrome were compared to two groups of nonretarded children, one similar in CA, the other a chronologically younger group of similar MA. The event-related brain potential and reaction time results indicated that Downs syndrome Ss processed some types of auditory information more slowly than the other groups. (Author/CL)

Most of 32 learning disabled children (seven to 14 years old) with neurological lateralization characteristics marked by right and left hemispheres had a normal CT (computerized tomography) scan. (CL)

Discusses the lack of a neurolinguistics section at the 1975 AILA conference in Stuttgart and urges its inclusion at the next meeting. (KM)

Shows that the perceived shade of gray depends on the luminance relationship between surfaces perceived to be in the same plane and not between surfaces that are merely adjacent in the retinal image. This implies that lateral inhibition cannot explain lightness constancy. (MLH)

Reviews the features of two classes of learning theories. Reports evidence supporting a statistical configuration" theory, suggesting that temporal patterns of neurophysiological waves in the average activity of extensive anatomical brain regions may constitute the basis of subjective experience. (AL)

In an investigation of the contingent negative variation (CNV) in autistic children, when subjects were presented photos of familiar and strange persons normal children showed significant differences in negative potential activity related to familiarity of photos, while DC responses of autistic children did not vary with photo content. (KW)