We report data from a group of patients with mild Alzheimer's disease on a range of tasks requiring either stored semantic knowledge about objects (e.g., naming object use) or the execution of action to objects (e.g., miming and using objects). We found that the patients were impaired at miming in response to objects, even when they could describe…

The research compared the effect of three play procedures upon the frequency and duration of object manipulation by six autistic children (four to six years old). The interaction procedure, in which the experimenter imitated both the material and the method of play chosen by the autistic child, resulted in greater frequency and duration of object…

Examined infants' categorization using object manipulation tasks that involved objects that were models of animals, vehicles, or furniture. Objects were normal, had anomalous moving parts (such as a dog with wheels), or had different textures. Found that 14- to 22-month olds attended to the parts and structural configuration of objects, but not to…

Performance-based measures of hand preference have been developed as an objective method of examining handedness. Previous research using this method by Bryden, Roy, and Mamolo (2003) showed that both skill demands and the position of the object in working space affect preferential hand reaching. Specifically, preferred hand reaches predominated…

Two experiments investigated 5-month-old infants' amodal sensitivity to numerical correspondences between sets of objects presented in the tactile and visual modes. A classical cross-modal transfer task from touch to vision was adopted. Infants were first tactually familiarized with two or three different objects presented one by one in their…

The primary purpose of the present study was to determine whether recent findings documenting the benefits of text-related motor activity on young children's memory for reading passages [Glenberg, A. M., Gutierrez, T., Levin, J. R., Japuntich, S., & Kaschak, M. (2004). Activity and imagined activity can enhance young readers' reading…

Grip force control relies on accurate internal models of the dynamics of our motor system and the external objects we manipulate. Internal models are not fixed entities, but rather are trained and updated by sensory experience. Sensory feedback signals relevant object properties and mechanical events, e.g. at the skin-object interface, to modify…

Environmental familiarization is a learning phenomenon embedded within most tasks used to study learning and motivation. Given its prevalence there is surprisingly little systematic behavioral research on factors affecting familiarization. The six experiments reported in the present report used rats' tendency to interact more with a novel object…

Tool use consists of at least two coupled phases of activities, involving multi-step problem solving. It therefore provides an interesting window on the development of planning in goal-directed behavior. This study investigated 2-year-olds' and 3-year-olds' hand use in picking up and subsequently using a tool for displacing a target-object towards…

Studies 12- to 24-month-olds in a series of videotaped tasks assessing single object manipulation, relational play, pretend play, distractibility and persistence. Develops eight relatively subtle measures of three aspects of individual differences in infant behavior: developmental level, attention span, and exploratory diversity. (Author/NH)

Efficacy of object manipulation and picture identification to teach single words was assessed with four 23- to 40-month-old language impaired children at sensorimotor development level. Among results: two children learned more nouns and verbs in object manipulation condition. (Author)

Examined whether the density of play continues to increase as children grow older. Four- and five-year-olds made simple constructions using few materials, six- and seven-year-olds made more constructions with more materials, and eight-to ten-year-olds made fewer but much more extensive and integrated constructions. (Author/DB)

This study examined the relationship of crossing the midline while reaching for objects to the development of bimanual reaching among infants ages 12, 18, and 26 weeks. Findings indicated that the frequency of two-hand grabbing and the number of midline reaches increased with age; most midline reaches were part of two-handed reaches and occurred…

Mental rotation studies examine how subjects determine whether two stimuli differing in orientation have the same-handedness. Handedness recognition tasks require the subject to determine whether forms are identical, differing only in degree of angular displacement. Four experiments involving 160 undergraduates demonstrate that mental…

In 3 experiments, the authors investigated the impact of action goals on the production of discrete bimanual responses. Similar to a bartender putting 2 glasses simultaneously on a shelf, participants placed 2 objects into either parallel or opposite orientations by carrying out either mirror-symmetrical or mirror-asymmetrical movements. In…