Perception of vowel length by Japanese- and English-learning infants.

This study investigated vowel length discrimination in infants from 2 language backgrounds, Japanese and English, in which vowel length is either phonemic or nonphonemic. Experiment 1 revealed that English 18-month-olds discriminate short and long vowels although vowel length is not phonemically contrastive in English. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that Japanese 18-month-olds also discriminate the pairs but in an asymmetric manner: They detected only the change from long to short vowel, but not the change in the opposite direction, although English infants in Experiment 1 detected the change in both directions. Experiment 4 tested Japanese 10-month-olds and revealed a symmetric pattern of discrimination similar to that of English 18-month-olds. Experiment 5 revealed that native adult Japanese speakers, unlike Japanese 18-month-old infants who are presumably still developing phonological perception, ultimately acquire a symmetrical discrimination pattern for the vowel contrasts. Taken together, our findings suggest that English 18-month-olds and Japanese 10-month-olds perceive vowel length using simple acoustic?phonetic cues, whereas Japanese 18-month-olds perceive it under the influence of the emerging native phonology, which leads to a transient asymmetric pattern in perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perception of auditory-visual distance relations by 5-month-old infants.

This study investigated whether, and on what basis, 5-mo-old infants perceive auditory–visual distance relations. A 2-screen visual preference procedure was used in which infants viewed side by side videotaped toy trains (in 4 visual conditions) along with increasing or decreasing amplitude lawnmower engine sounds from a central speaker designed to match one of the videos. Results suggest that 5-mo-olds were sensitive to auditory–visual distance relations and that changing size was an important visual depth cue. Infants did not show evidence of matching in other conditions in which the soundtracks were paired with videos depicting shifts in the train's luminance or showing the train moving vertically with no change in size. The infants' matching performance suggested that 5-mo-olds respond to invariant auditory–visual relations specifying meaningful spatial properties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Ames window illusion: Perception of illusory motion by human infants.

The sensitivity of human infants, 5?-9 months of age, to the illusory oscillation of the Ames window was assessed in three experiments that employed some variant of the habituation–dishabituation and forced-choice preferential looking paradigms. In Experiment 1, three groups—5?, 7?, and 9 months of age—were given a visual choice between rotating rectangular and Ames windows after exposure to a rotating circular form. The two older groups preferred the Ames window. The results of Experiment 2 showed that this preference is not based on structural differences between the two windows. In Experiment 3, familiarization with an Ames window produced a preference for rotary motion while familiarization with a rectangular window produced a preference for oscillatory motion. These results suggest that sensitivity to the illusion emerges around 7? months of age, an outcome consistent with the emergence, at this time, of sensitivity to pictorial cues to depth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perception of invariants by five-month-old infants: Differentiation of two types of motion.

Habituated 5-mo-old infants to 3 types of visually presented rigid motion. Duration of fixation was the dependent measure. After reaching a criterion of habituation, a 4th rigid motion (not habituated) and a deformation were presented. Dishabituation was significantly greater to the deformation than to the 4th rigid motion. Comparison with a no-change control condition showed a significant difference for deformation when it followed the 4th rigid motion. It is inferred that the infants detected the invariant property of rigidity and differentiated it from the deformation. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perception of the symmetrical patterning of human gait by infants.

Two experiments tested 3- and 5-month-old infants' sensitivity to properties of point-light displays of human gait. In Experiment 1, infants were tested for discrimination of point-light displays of a walker and a runner, which, although they differed in many ways, were equivalent with regard to the phasing of limb movements. Results revealed that 3-month-old, but not 5-month-old, infants discriminated these displays. In Experiment 2, the symmetrical phase-patterning of the runner display was perturbed by advancing two of its limbs by 25% of the gait cycle. Both 3- and 5-month-old infants discriminated the walker display from this new phase-shifted runner display. These findings suggest that 3-month-old infants respond to the absolute and relative motions within a single limb, whereas 5-month-old infants respond primarily to the relations between limbs and, in particular, to the bilateral symmetry between the limbs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perception of object unity in 2-month-old infants.

The perception of object unity in partial occlusion displays was examined in 72 2-month-old infants. The infants were habituated to 1 of 3 displays depicting a rod undergoing lateral motion behind a box. In each display, more of the rod was visible behind the box than was previously available in prior studies of young infants' perception of occlusion. Posthabituation test displays consisted of 2 rod pieces (broken rod) and a complete rod, presented 3 times each in alternation. Infants in all 3 conditions looked longer at the broken rod than at the complete rod, suggesting that the hidden region of the rod in the habituation display was inferred despite the absence of direct perceptual support. These findings suggest that very young infants' visual, attentional, or cognitive skills may be insufficient to consistently support perception of object unity, except under some display conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perception of contradictory speech by normal and disturbed children at various age levels.

Recordings were made of female teachers reciting congruent and contradictory messages. In the congruent condition, the verbal and tonal elements of the communication were consistent. In the contradictory condition, the tone of voice was incongruent with the words spoken. All the congruent and contradictory vocal expressions were arranged in random order on a single tape and played to "normal" and "disturbed" boys of different ages (Grades 2, 4, and 6). Significant effects were found for type of speech and age: Ss reacted more negatively to contradictory than to congruent speech, and younger Ss responded more negatively to contradiction than did older ones. The disturbed Ss reacted significantly more negatively than normal Ss to contradictory messages. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perception of auditory–visual temporal synchrony in human infants.

Using a habituation/test procedure, the author investigated adults' and infants' perception of auditory–visual temporal synchrony. Participants were familiarized with a bouncing green disk and a sound that occurred each time the disk bounced. Then, they were given a series of asynchrony test trials where the sound occurred either before or after the disk bounced. The magnitude of the auditory visual temporal asynchrony threshold differed markedly in adults and infants. The threshold for the detection of asynchrony created by a sound preceding a visible event was 65 ms in adults and 350 ms in infants and for the detection of asynchrony created by a sound following a visible event was 112 ms in adults and 450 ms in infants. Also, infants did not respond to asynchronies that exceeded intervals that yielded reliable discrimination. Infants' perception of auditory–visual temporal unity is guided by a synchrony and an asynchrony window, both of which become narrower in development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verb-specific constraints in sentence processing: Separating effects of lexical preference from garden-paths.

Immediate effects of verb-specific syntactic (subcategorization) information were found in a cross-modal naming experiment, a self-paced reading experiment, and an experiment in which eye movements were monitored. In the reading studies, syntactic misanalysis effects in sentence complements (e.g., "The student forgot the solution was…") occurred at the verb in the complement (e.g., was) for matrix verbs typically used with noun phrase complements but not for verbs typically used with sentence complements. In addition, a complementizer effect for sentence-complement-biased verbs was not due to syntactic misanalysis but was correlated with how strongly a particular verb prefers to be followed by the complementizer that. The results support models that make immediate use of lexically specific constraints, especially constraint-based models, but are problematic for lexical filtering models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ontogenetic constraints on neural and behavioral plasticity: Evidence from imprinting and face processing.

This paper addresses the extent and limits on brain plasticity during development through the detailed study of imprinting in the domestic chick and the development of face processing in human infants. In both of these systems evidence for constraints on plasticity is reviewed. The first source of constraint comes from the basic architecture of learning mechanisms that support plasticity. With regard to the chick, a specific Hebbian model based on the known neural circuitry of the region of the brain involved is presented and discussed. In human infants, a more abstract model inspired by cortical circuitry is mentioned. The second source of constraint comes from biases on the nature of the stimuli selected for attention by the young organism. Both in the chick and the human there is evidence for a subcortical brain system which orients their attention toward conspecifics, and particularly to their faces. It is argued that these systems tutor, or bias the input to, the more plastic learning systems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Walking Perception by Walking Observers.

People frequently analyze the actions of other people for the purpose of action coordination. To understand whether such self-relative action perception differs from other-relative action perception, the authors had observers either compare their own walking speed with that of a point-light walker or compare the walking speeds of 2 point-light walkers. In Experiment 1, observers walked, bicycled, or stood while performing a gait-speed discrimination task. Walking observers demonstrated the poorest sensitivity to walking speed, suggesting that perception and performance of the same action alters visual-motion processes. Experiments 2-6 demonstrated that the processes used during self-relative and other-relative action perception differ significantly in their dependence on observers' previous motor experience, current motor effort, and potential for action coordination. These results suggest that the visual analysis of human motion during traditional laboratory studies can differ substantially from the visual analysis of human movement under more realistic conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perception of relational invariants by newborns.

Two studies investigated (1) the ability of 40 newborns (aged less than 1 wk) to detect relational invariants (Exp I) and (2) whether infants perceive stimulus elements as a single pattern of figures rather than as 2 discrete figures in relationship (Exp II). In Exp I, Ss were evaluated in a habituation-recovery paradigm for evidence of the ability to detect an invariant identity or nonidentity relationship between components of a visual stimulus. Ss who were initially habituated to stimuli consisting of 2 identical elements recovered fixation when the elements were rearranged to be dissimilar and vice versa. Control Ss who continued to see the familiarized stimuli at test yielded no recovery. To determine whether Ss might have perceived the stimulus elements as a single pattern of figures rather than as 2 discrete figures in relationship, a 2nd study was conducted in which circles that enclosed each element (and which were presumed to unitize each) were removed at test. Because Ss in this condition recovered responding at test, it was concluded that the circles had been visible in the 1st experiment and that the elements may thus have been perceived as discrete. Overall findings are consistent with the Gibsonian view that infants are inherently disposed to detect invariant, higher-order relational information (i.e., information that specifies significant objective properties of the environment). (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The processing role of structural constraints on interpretation of pronouns and anaphors.

The authors report 6 self-paced word-by-word reading studies of how morphosyntactic agreement, focus status, and the structural constraints of binding theory apply and interact during the online interpretation of pronouns (e.g., him, her) and anaphors (e.g., himself, each other). Previous studies held that structural conditions on coreference work as interpretive filters that impose exceptionless limits on which antecedent candidates can be evaluated by subsequent, content-based processes. These experiments instead support an interactive-parallel-constraint model, in which multiple weighted constraints (including constraints on binding) simultaneously influence the net activation of a candidate during preselection stages of antecedent evaluation. Accordingly, structurally inaccessible candidates can interfere with antecedent selection if they are both prominent in focus structure and gender-number compatible with the pronoun or anaphor. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perception of disability by the nondisabled.

30 male and 20 female graduate students rated the seriousness of 4 disability types for 6 personal-social areas as they would affect a 28-yr-old male, married, and with 2 pre-teen-age children. Using Duncan's multiple-range test, 70% of the pairs of personal-social dimensions were found to differ significantly. As predicted, locus of control and ratings of the seriousness of emotional disorders were significantly correlated (r = -.30). The hypothesis that disabilities other than emotional disorders would be viewed as more debilitating by externally controlled persons was not supported. Implications of the findings for rehabilitation programs are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Temporal constraints in processing of nonverbal rhythmic patterns

This study investigates the effect of a mental content of presented stimuli, normal aging and individual differences in cognitive abilities on temporal limits of an integration mechanism. Younger and older subject grouped together the beats generated by a metronome. Subjects were asked to listen to the beats of a metronome and to accentuate mentally every second, third, fourth...etc. beat, to create a subjective rhythm. This rhythm exists, in fact, only in subjects' mind and not objectively. Subjects reported verbally how many clicks they were able to integrate into a perceptual unit. On this basis, the time interval during which subjects were able to integrate temporally separated stimuli was calculated (number of beats reported as being integrated x time distance between beats) for different metronome frequencies. The results show, firstly, that the length of integration periods significantly depends on the frequency of presented metronome beats. When the frequency of metronome beats is high, the time interval during which the subjects integrate beats into a single perceptual unit is shorter. Secondly, older adults integrate information during a longer time interval than younger ones. Thirdly, the length of an integration period is related to a subjects' level of cognitive ability. These results suggest that the length of an integration period is not a constant, stable feature, but varies across the life span depending on the mental content of the information presented and individual factors.     

Social constraints, cognitive processing, and adjustment to breast cancer.

This cross-sectional study of 70 breast cancer survivors examined relationships among social constraints, behavioral and self-report indicators of cognitive processing, depression, and well-being. On the basis of a social-cognitive processing (SCP) model, it was predicted that social constraints would inhibit cognitive processing of the cancer experience, leading to poorer adjustment. Constraints were positively associated with intrusions, avoidance, and linguistic uncertainty in cancer narratives. Greater uncertainty, intrusions, and avoidance, as well as less talking about cancer were associated with greater depression and less well-being. Intrusions partially mediated the positive constraints-depression relationship. Talking about cancer partially mediated the inverse avoidance-well-being relationship. Findings support the SCP model and the importance of using behavioral indicators of cognitive processing to predict positive and negative psychosocial outcomes of cancer. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Facilitation of perception by spelling constraints.

Conducted 4 experiments in which a total of 42 undergraduates viewed tachistoscopic presentations of a consonant pair and were asked to recall which of 2 or 4 pairs had been presented. Performance was better when the arrangement of letters was constrained in some way than when that constraint was absent (e.g., when the letters K and V could appear together only in 1 order-KV-vs either order, KV or VK). The alternatives were chosen so that knowledge of the constraint would not help the Ss (e.g., KV and VK never appeared together as alternatives). The facilitation effect occurred even when constrained and unconstrained conditions were equated for frequency of letter pairs or of letters occurring in a given position. Effects were found for both order and sequence constraints, and facilitation persisted from day to day. These effects are inconsistent with models of perceptual learning which depend on frequency of exposure. The underlying mechanisms may also facilitate the recognition of words. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)