Vowel recognition: Inferences from studies of forward and backward masking

The recognition of brief vowels was studied in forward and backward masking tasks. In a series of experiments in which both target and mask parameters were systematically varied, two populations of subjects were identified. The majority (Nonmaskers) evidenced little masking at any interstimulus interval, while relatively fewer subjects (Maskers) evidenced backward masking (but not forward masking) over a 100-200 ms interval. Increasing target set size systematically increased masking for the Maskers but not for the Nonmaskers. Adding white noise to the targets increased the extent of masking for both groups. These results suggest (1) that masking does not impose a substantive constraint on vowel perception in running speech, and (2) that multiple strategies may exist for vowel recognition.     

Subjective contours in stereoscopic space

Stereoscopic depth and subjective contour clarity were manipulated by varying the type of monocular configuration as well as magnitude and direction of disparity. The clarity of the subjective contours was influenced significantly by both magnitude and direction of disparity and by the type of monocular configuration. Subjective contours were always less clear when the objective monocular contour was discontinuous regardless of disparity. Stereoscopic depth estimates varied directly with magnitude and direction of disparity; however, depth magnitude reports were truncated when the disparity was carried by discontinuously defined patterns.     

Neuropsychologic functioning in children with autism: further evidence for disordered complex information-processing.

A wide range of abilities was assessed in 56 high-functioning children with autism and 56 age- and IQ-matched controls. Stepwise discriminant analyses produced good group discrimination for sensory-perceptual, motor, complex language, and complex memory domains but lower agreement for the reasoning domain than previously obtained for adults. Group discrimination did not occur for attention, simple language, simple memory, and visuospatial domains. Findings provide additional support for a complex information-processing model for autism, previously based on adult data, demonstrating a pattern across domains of selective impairments on measures with high demands for integration of information and sparing when demands were low. Children as compared to adults with autism exhibited more prominent sensory-perceptual symptoms and less pronounced reasoning deficits reflecting brain maturation.     

Parents' ethnic-racial socialization practices: a review of research and directions for future study

Recently, there has been an emergence of literature on the mechanisms through which parents transmit information, values, and perspectives about ethnicity and race to their children, commonly referred to as racial or ethnic socialization. This literature has sought to document the nature of such socialization, its antecedents in parents' and children's characteristics and experiences, and its consequences for children's well-being and development. In this article, the authors integrate and synthesize what is known about racial and ethnic socialization on the basis of current empirical research, examining studies concerning its nature and frequency; its child, parent, and ecological predictors; and its consequences for children's development, including ethnic identity, self-esteem, coping with discrimination, academic achievement, and psychosocial well-being. The authors also discuss conceptual and methodological limitations of the literature and suggest directions for future research.     

Errors in judging information about reflections in mirrors

We investigated people's perception and knowledge of planar mirror reflections. People were accurate at deciding when they could first see their reflection as they approached a mirror from the side, but only if their reflection was visible. Most people stopped too early if the mirror was covered up. People also overestimated the size of the reflection of their face on the surface of a mirror if they were shown a covered mirror. Their accuracy improved somewhat if their reflection was visible but, unlike the first task, they still made striking errors. Perceptual feedback thus improved performance at predicting the behaviour of mirror reflections in both tasks but failed to eliminate errors in the second task. The overestimation of reflection size was not face-specific as it generalised to novel stimuli (paper ellipses) and it was found with both a matching response and for verbal size estimations. The early error in the first task appears to be due to an inaccurate belief that can be overridden by perceptual feedback. The overestimation in the second task is primarily caused by a powerful size-constancy effect.     

The hoarding dimension of OCD: psychological comorbidity and the five-factor personality model

Although hoarding has been associated with several psychological disorders, it is most frequently linked to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The present study assessed hoarding obsessions and compulsions in 204 individuals with OCD, and evaluated how hoarding was related to obsessive-compulsive symptom severity, psychological comorbidity, and personality as measured by the five-factor model. Results indicated that hoarding in OCD is a dimensional variable that is positively associated with dysphoria, total number of lifetime Axis I disorders, and lifetime histories of bipolar I, PTSD, and body dysmorphic disorder. Hoarding was negatively correlated with the NEO-Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R) factor of Conscientiousness and positively associated with the NEO-PI-R factor of Neuroticism. When all personality and psychopathology variables were entered into a regression equation, dysphoria, bipolar II disorder, Conscientiousness, age, and Extraversion emerged as significant predictors of hoarding severity. Recommendations are made for clinicians and for future research.     

The air gap phenomenon in children's landscape drawings

The “air gap” phenomenon was found to be very common in the free landscape drawings of middle and later childhood. Three experiments are reported in which the contextual cues for such drawings were systematically manipulated. When subjects were supplied with drawing sheets constructed to imply the absence of the air gap, the phenomenon was eliminated in most of their drawings. When supplied with sheets constructed to imply its presence, most subjects produced air gap drawings using contextually provided reference lines. There were no consistent transfer effects across different cuing orders. The susceptibility of the air gap phenomenon to modification by task manipulation suggests that it results from problems of production rather than from defects in the child's internal representation of the world.