Multidimensional scaling (MDS) offers a rigorous approach to many problems in perception, emotion, personality, and cognition, where the stimuli are too complex to be quantified by other means. In these procedures similarity ratings of the stimulus objects are modeled as points in multidimensional space, such that perceived similarity is…

Contends that history is a nearly "sense-less" profession because reading is almost the only source of historical understanding. Reviews content related to sensory experiences in college history textbooks. Argues that including language about the senses in historical writing and instruction will enlarge the audience and the field of…

Assesses the acceptance of and expressed preference for varying levels of salt in soup among children three to six years of age. (HOD)

This article discusses sensory perception. The author reorganizes a previous conception of the interaction between sense organ and physical object and suggests how educational researchers study the perception of physical objects. (DF)

Investigates infant stimulation as it relates to nurturing and natural mothering activities. A format for a case-study of a newborn infant and her parents is discussed. (RJC)

When six-month-old infants are preexposed to one stimulus, they are later able to remember that stimulus and distinguish it from a previously unseen, novel stimulus; degree of experience with one stimulus and the magnitude of novelty effect positively covary. Neurological substrates of infants' memory skills are described. (RH)

Describes subjective-contour illusions and gives explanations for perception of shape and brightness in these figures. Supports cognitive mechanisms rather than psychological mechanisms. Gives examples of subjective-contour illusions and summarizes explanations of other psychologists with regard to this topic. (CW)

Investigated the distinctiveness and recognizability of taste-elicited facial expressions in 12 newborns two hours of age. Findings demonstrated that newborns differentiate sour and bitter from each other and from salty, and discriminate between sweet and nonsweet. Judges accurately identified newborns' responses to sucrose, but systematically…

The role of experience in the developing brain is considered. A categorization scheme based upon the type of information stored and the brain mechanisms involved in storing the information is proposed. Experience-expectant and experience-dependent information storage are differentiated. (BN)

To investigate sensory dominance in early development, a series of studies examined six-month-old infants' processing of multisensory stimulus compounds. Findings indicated that infants discriminated changes in the temporal characteristics of the auditory component but not in the visual component. This and other findings suggested that auditory…

Involving 10-month-old infants, a series of studies examined responses to temporally modulated compound auditory-visual stimuli. Findings indicated that, although the auditory modality can dominate the visual modality at 10 months of age, the visual modality can process temporal information when the temporal relationship of the information in the…

An individual with autism addresses the need for more research on sensory problems in autism. Difficulties that autistic individuals have with sensory processing, attention shifting, and sensory mixing between modalities are noted. Preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of sensory integration therapy is noted. (DB)

The role played by neuroembryological forces in shaping brain development is well documented in Nowakowski's (1987) article. Additional mechanisms whereby experience may influence brain structure and function are outlined. Several routes exist by which postnatal experiential influences may produce long-term alterations in behavior and…

In comparative judgments of two stimuli separated by a time interval, there is often a systematic asymmetry (time-order error). From a review of the literature it is concluded that the time-order error should be classified as a perceptual phenomenon that can be predicted with adaptation-level theory and sensation weighting. (Author/CB)

Examines the ability to differentiate appearance-reality and Level Two perspective-taking in tactile modality among a total of 92 children aged two-four years in three studies. The results indicate that three-year-olds find tactile appearance-reality and Level Two perspective-taking tasks easier than visual ones. (RJC)