Perceptual organization based on illusory regions in infancy

Prior research indicates that, like adults, infants use enclosed regions to group elements. It is not clear whether infants or adults can use regions that have to be inferred from illusory contours to group elements. We examined whether 3- to 4-month-olds use illusory regions to group elements and generalize this organization to novel regions. Infants habituated to pairs of shapes in illusory vertical or horizontal regions subsequently discriminated, in novel regions, pairs of elements that had previously shared a region from pairs of elements that had been in different regions. A control group of infants, who had experienced the same stimuli except for the presence of illusory regions, failed to discriminate between within-region and between-region pairs of stimuli. These results reveal that (1) illusory regions can be used to group elements, (2) perceptual organization is sufficiently developed early in life for 3- to 4-month-olds to group on the basis of ecologically relevant illusory contours, and (3) such grouping in infancy generalizes to novel regions.     

Part perception in infancy: Sensitivity to the short-cut rule

Research indicates that object perception involves the decomposition of images into parts. A critical principle that governs part decomposition by adults is the short-cut rule, which states that, all else being equal, the visual system parses objects using the shortest possible cuts. We examined whether 6.5-month-olds’ parsing of images also follows the short-cut rule. Infants in the experimental conditions were habituated to cross shapes and then tested for their preference between segregated patterns produced using long cuts versus short cuts. Infants in the control conditions were directly tested with the segregated patterns. Infants in the experimental conditions exhibited a greater novelty preference for the long-cut over the short-cut patterns than did those in the control conditions, thereby indicating that they are more likely to segregate cross shapes using short cuts rather than long cuts. This sensitivity to the short-cut rule was evident when two alternative parameters, part area and protrusion, were controlled in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively. Thus, a critical principle that governs part segregation in adulthood is operational by 6.5 months of age.     

Maternal personality influences the relationship between maternal reports and laboratory measures of child temperament

Previous research has indicated that agreement between maternal reports of child temperament and laboratory measures is modest; however, it is unclear whether maternal characteristics influence convergence between methods. We examined whether mothers' personality influenced agreement between maternal reports and observational measures of child traits. A total of 64 mothers and children participated in this study. Maternal negative emotionality (NE) moderated the relationship between maternal reports and laboratory measures of child temperament: Greater convergence was found between maternal ratings of children's negative emotional traits and laboratory measures for mothers with higher NE than mothers with lower NE. Findings are consistent with the possibility that mothers' own traits influence the extent to which they successfully encode and/or report on analogous child behaviors.     

The effects of pacing and masking on stutterers' and nonstutterers' speech initiation times

The present study was undertaken to determine whether pacing and masking would facilitate improved speech initiation times (SITs) both for stutterers and for nonstutterers. All subjects were tested in control, pacing, and masking conditions. The results showed that both stutterers and nonstutterers (1) improved their SITs during the pacing condition as compared with the control condition (p = 0.01), (2) had slower SITs in the masking condition as compared with the control condition (p = 0.05), and (3) had faster SITs during the pacing as compared with the masking condition (p = 0.01). The SIT between-group findings demonstrated that stutterers were slower than nonstutterers across all SIT conditions (p = 0.08). The discussion of these results centers on the facilatory nature of novel stimulation in modifying speech-system functioning.     

The self and possibilites for change

In the context of a formulation of self, the possibility for self-defined change and its occurrence were specified. Views of self, defined as concordant (actual and preferred self views are the same) or discordant (actual and preferred self views are different) were analyzed in terms of the implicative capacity of each view of self and willingness to change one's view of self. The general formulation was confirmed. Individuals tend to (1) maintain a desired and current view of self, and (2) either shift or avoid a shift to the desired view of self depending on the relative implicative capacity of the desired or preferred view of self. Theoretical implications of the nature of the self and the possibilities of change, of self-defined change, and insight were discussed.     

Effects of environment on psychological well-being of elderly persons

This study reports an investigation of the psychological well-being of 90 elderly persons living in independent, retirement, and nursing homes. In previous studies elderly persons have not been matched on high levels of social and physical functioning across these living environments. Analyses indicated significantly that elderly persons living in their own homes or retirement homes reported greater well-being than their matched cohorts in nursing homes.     

Race-based perceptual asymmetries underlying face processing in infancy

Adults process other-race faces differently than own-race faces. For instance, a single other-race face in an array of own-race faces attracts Caucasians’ attention, but a single own-race face among other-race faces does not. This perceptual asymmetry has been explained by the presence of an other-race feature in other-race faces and its absence in own-race faces; this difference is thought to underlie race-based differences in face processing. We examined the developmental origins of this mechanism in two groups of Caucasian 9-month-olds. Infants in the experimental group exhibited a preference for a pattern containing a single Asian face among seven Caucasian faces over a pattern containing a single Caucasian face among seven Asian faces. This preference was not driven by the majority of elements in the images, because a control group of infants failed to exhibit a preference between homogeneous patterns containing eight Caucasian versus eight Asian faces. The results demonstrate that an other-race face among own-race faces attracts infants’ attention but not vice versa. This perceptual asymmetry suggests that the other-race feature is available to Caucasians by 9 months of age, thereby indicating that mechanisms of specialization in face processing originate early in life.