Motion parallax as an independent cue for depth perception.

The perspective transformations of the retinal image, produced by either the movement of an observer or the movement of objects in the visual world, were found to produce a reliable, consistent, and unambiguous impression of relative depth in the absence of all other cues to depth and distance. The stimulus displays consisted of computer-generated random-dot patterns that could be transformed by each movement of the observer or the display oscilloscope to simulate the relative movement information produced by a three-dimensional surface. Using a stereoscopic matching task, the second experiment showed that the perceived depth from parallax transformations is in close agreement with the degree of relative image displacement, as well as producing a compelling impression of three-dimensionality not unlike that found with random-dot stereograms.     

Identifying Critical Cross-Cultural School Psychology Competencies

The purpose of this study was to identify critical cross-cultural competencies for school psychologists. This study used a Delphi procedure to bring together the expertise of a national sample of cross-cultural experts, including school psychology practitioners, faculty, and supervisors/administrators of whom 62% represented a racial/ethnic minority group member. To identify the competencies, we conducted an extensive literature search about cross-cultural school psychology competencies then used a questionnaire to ask expert panelists to rate the importance of the literature based competencies and to delineate additional competencies not represented in the integrated literature but based on expert opinion. The literature yielded 185 competencies and the panelists generated 75 additional competencies. Following the second questionnaire round, 102 competencies were identified as critical cross-cultural competencies. The 102 competencies cover 14 major domains of professional activities and practices for school psychologists (e.g., Academic Interventions, Assessment, Consultation, Counseling, Culture, Language, Laws and Regulations, Organizational Skills, Professional Characteristics, Report Writing, Research Methods, Theoretical Paradigms, Working with Interpreters, and Working with Parents). Implications for research and training are discussed.     

The Parent–Child Relationship as an Archetype for the Relationship Between God and Humanity in Genesis

This article explores the idea that the relationship between a parent and developing child may serve as an archetype for understanding the changing relationship between God and humanity in Genesis. With Adam, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph representing successive stages of human development, the narrative structure of Genesis is said to portray the relationship between God and humanity as changing in a way that parallels a parent's changing relationship with his or her children across their growth toward psychological integration. This changing relationship with God, which starts out with a symbiotic union with the divine, progresses through separation and individuation, and culminates in reintegration with God, may offer a Biblical approach to psychological growth and healing, as well as a theoretical conceptualization for both the parental and mutable nature of God.     

What do children with autism attend to during imitation tasks?

Individuals with autism show a complex profile of differences in imitative ability, including a general deficit in precision of imitating another’s actions and special difficulty in imitating nonmeaningful gestures relative to meaningful actions on objects. Given that they also show atypical patterns of visual attention when observing social stimuli, we investigated whether possible differences in visual attention when observing an action to be imitated may contribute to imitative difficulties in autism in both nonmeaningful gestures and meaningful actions on objects. Results indicated that (a) a group of 18 high-functioning 8- to 15-year-olds with autistic disorder, in comparison with a matched group of 13 typically developing children, showed similar patterns of visual attention to the demonstrator’s action but decreased attention to his face when observing a model to be imitated; (b) nonmeaningful gestures and meaningful actions on objects triggered distinct visual attention patterns that did not differ between groups; (c) the autism group demonstrated reduced imitative precision for both types of imitation; and (d) duration of visual attention to the demonstrator’s action was related to imitation precision for nonmeaningful gestures in the autism group.