Selective attention by children and adults to pictures specified by color

Four conditions were used to investigate developmental trends in the ability to establish and use a color set to direct the selective processing of pictures. In three conditions, 6-year-old, 9-year-old, and adult subjects viewed a series of pairs of pictures, with one red and one black line drawing in each pair. Subjects were asked to look either at the red pictures only, the black pictures only, or both pictures. In a fourth condition, subjects viewed a series of singly presented red and black pictures. Pictures of both colors were included in a subsequent recognition memory test. At all ages recognition memory was comparable for pictures of each color in the both and single conditions but was higher for pictures of the specified color in the selective red and selective black conditions. There was no evidence at any age that memory for pictures of the specified color was decreased by the presence of the second picture. These results, showing roughly comparable selectivity at all ages, were discussed in relation to findings of developmental trends in selective attention on more “traditional” central-incidental learning tasks.     

Central deafness and subcortical motor aphasia

Clinical and autopsy studies were made on a right-handed man who had central deafness and subcortical motor aphasia, and the literature on central deafness and on subcortical motor aphasia was analyzed. Central deafness is due to bilateral destruction of the primary auditory cortex. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish from word deafness and from auditory agnosia, which are due to pathology in other parts of the temporal lobes. There is almost always some preserved hearing in central deafness, possibly from some auditory pathway other than the classical pathway. In this patient the subcortical motor aphasia was due to bilateral destruction of the motor cortex for the mouth and throat. In some other cases subcortical motor aphasia was due to the same pathology that usually causes Broca's aphasia; in these cases the unexpected preservation of writing was perhaps related to some difference in how language functions were organized in the brain.     

Effects of knowledge that attributions will be observed by others

The current study was conducted to determine if attribution statements would be affected by subjects' knowledge that their attributions of success or failure would be observed by an opposite-sex peer. At the time subjects recorded their attributions, half of them anticipated that their attributions would soon be observed in their presence by an opposite-sex peer, while the other half recorded their attributions anonymously. Results indicated that attributions of success and failure were affected by the social context. Observed subjects evidenced less tendency to attribute their failure to low ability than did nonobserved subjects. Subjects who succeeded on an identity-relevant task reported higher ability attributions under observation conditions than under nonobservation conditions. Observed subjects evidenced significantly greater willingness to attribute failure to lack of effort than did nonobserved subjects. For a task intended to be of minimal relevance to subjects' identities, nonobserved subjects attributed failure to task difficulty to a significantly greater degree than did observed subjects. Results were discussed in relation to Bradley's contention that self-serving biases in attribution can usefully be conceptualized as strategic self-presentations.     

Sensitivity of 5- and 7-month-old infants to pictorial depth information

An Ames (1951, Psychological Monographs, 65(1, Whole No. 324)) static trapezoidal window, under monocular view, was used to test young infants' responsiveness to pictorial depth. When adults view this display monocularly with the smaller side of the window rotated toward them, they report that the orientation of the display becomes ambiguous: When the head is moved, the window may appear to be in the fronto-parallel plane or either side may appear closer. The 7-month-olds we tested appeared to experience a similar ambiguity; they reached to the near side of the rotated trapezoidal window with significantly less consistency or directedness than infants in a control group tested with a rotated object that lacked pictorial depth information. When 5-month-olds were tested, however, they reached with equal consistency to the closer side of the trapezoidal window and of the control display, apparently uninfluenced by the pictorial depth information available in the trapezoidal window. Thus, sensitivity to the pictorial information for depth that is present in the trapezoidal window appears to develop after the age of 22 weeks.     

Performance of dyslexic children on speech perception tests

Several researchers who have compared the performance of dyslexic and normal-reading children on a variety of different tasks have suggested that dyslexic children may have subtle deficits in the phonemic analysis of spoken as well as written language. Thus it is of interest to know how children who have extraordinary difficulty learning to read can perform explicity auditory-phonetic tasks. Seventeen dyslexic children (10 years of age) and a group of 17 controls were administered tests of identification and discrimination of synthesized voiced stop consonants differing in place of articulation. These were tests of the type used to study categorical perception in adults, adapted for use with young children. Significant differences between dyslexics and controls were found in both kinds of tasks; the pattern of identification and discrimination differences suggests an inconsistency in the dyslexics' phonetic classification of auditory cues. A significant relationship was found between reading level and speech discrimination.     

Children's detection and awareness of textual anomaly

Children of 8 and 11 years were assessed in two experiments for their sensitivity to textual anomaly. In Experiment 1, subjects read stories containing two target lines, one appropriate and the other anomalous in relation to previously given information. Both age groups read the anomalous line more slowly than the appropriate line, but in a subsequent test of comprehension monitoring, the older group was more likely than the younger group to pick out the anomalous line as not fitting in with the rest of the story. Experiment 2 produced similar results: both 8- and 11-year-old children read an anomalous line more slowly, but 11-year-olds were more likely than 8-year-olds to cite the anomalous line or part of it when questioned about the possible presence of a line that did not fit in with the rest of the story. The results indicate that an age change in comprehension monitoring as indexed by citation or selection of a textual anomaly need not be contingent upon a parallel age change in constructive processing as indexed by modulation of reading rate.     

Behavior of depressed subjects in problem solving groups

This study investigated leadership selection in groups in relation to level of depression of group members. On the basis of MMPI-D and DACL scores 66 subjects were organized into groups of six to eight people consisting of all depressed, all nondepressed, or half depressed and half nondepressed subjects. Subjects performed a problem solving task alone and in groups and completed a questionnaire on leadership choice and group performance. Results indicate that nondepressed group members talked more frequently, were rated as more important contributors, and were selected as leaders more frequently than depressed members. In addition, mixed groups were perceived as more efficient and enjoyable by group members than the unmixed groups. There were no significant differences between depressed and nondepressed subjects on performance of the problem solving task whether working alone or in groups. Results were discussed in relation to other literature on the interpersonal behavior of depressed persons.     

Central auditory processing : III. The “cocktail party” effect and anterior temporal lobectomy

The capacity to selectively attend to only one of multiple, spatially separated, simultaneous sound sources—the “cocktail party” effect—was evaluated in normal subjects and in those with anterior temporal lobectomy using common environmental sounds. A significant deficit in this capacity was observed for those stimuli located on the side of space contralateral to the lobectomy, a finding consistent with the hypothesis that within each anterior temporal lobe is a mechanism that is normally capable of enhancing the perceptual salience of one acoustic stimulus on the opposite side of space, when other sound sources are present on that side. Damage to this mechanism also appears to be associated with a deficit of spatial localization for sounds contralateral to the lesion.     

A study of hyperlexia

Twelve children with early intense reading and superior word recognition skills coupled with disordered language and cognitive behavior are described. Cognitive, linguistic, and reading measures evidenced a generalized cognitive deficit in forming superordinate schemata which was not specific to visual or auditory modalities. Positive family histories for reading problems were present for 11 of the 12 children, suggesting a relationship between hyperlexia and dyslexia.