Irritability levels and activity reactivity to aversive tactile stimuli were compared for 144 full-term neonates and 191 preterm infants. Irritability ratings increased across the five trials both during and post stimulation for full-term females and males and for preterm females, but not for preterm males. Activity ratings decreased across trials…

Five hearing impaired children (2 to 4 years old) were followed longitudinally while using a single channel, vibrotactile aid as a supplement to hearing aids. Standardized language tests (including the Scales of Early Communication Skills for Hearing Impaired Children, the Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language, and the Test for Auditory…

In order to provide an estimate of encoding within the active mode and a comparison between three modes of representation (enactive, imagery, and verbal), 36 second grade children from the high socioeconomic community of Beverly Hills, California, were presented with object pairs under one of three conditions (haptic-object versus visual-object…

The theory that reading is a perceptual process was tested in a study involving 216 fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. The significance of the relationship between performance on a standard reading test and on an apparatus designed to test visual/motor perception was assessed. An analysis of the data revealed that there was no relationship between…

This paper discusses a longitudinal, exploratory study of developmental dimensions related to object permanence theory and explains how multidimensional scaling techniques can be used to identify developmental dimensions. Eighty infants, randomly assigned to one of four experimental groups and one of four counterbalanced orders of stimuli, were…

This qualitative study explored the perceptions of dental students, faculty, and graduate students on the development of a sense of touch in dental practice. Eight focus groups were held: four were comprised of third-year dental students (n=22), two of advanced, general dentistry postgraduate students (n=11), and two of dental faculty (n=8). Each…

This case study describes a congenitally blind undergraduate student who successfully completed a basic statistics course. Accommodations specific to his blindness included: a textbook on tape and review tapes before examinations; a talking calculator; graphs made on Braille paper and other tactile teaching aids. Affective problems encountered…

In order to investigate learning theories, media researchers need to explore three variables: (1) the psychological requirements of a given learning task, (2) individual differences in cognitive style, and (3) specific media characteristics. It is necessary to identify the psychological processes which underlie any specific learning task in order…

This study investigated the relationship between intramodal and intermodal information processing and performance on traditional age appropriate tests of spatial and perceptual-motor abilities. The ability of 65 normal kindergarten, first grade and second grade children to match to either a tactile or a visual standard was assessed with a modified…

The main purpose of this study was to address this question: When preschool children are exposed to novel objects, will their tactual and verbal information-seeking about these objects and the amount of information they remember about these same objects be influenced by whether an adult labels them as things "for girls" or "for…

This experiment compared retarded and normal subjects at different developmental levels on visual (V) and haptic (H) matching tasks. Systematic observations of variables known to have developmentally linked effects on accuracy, including stimulus complexity and haptic exploratory search style, were made. Seventeen mentally retarded subjects, with…

A study was designed to test the expectation that different individuals have different cognitive styles, which, if true, may be useful in investigating characteristics and psychological impacts of media utilization. Cognitive style refers to an individual's way of acquiring and processing information. Characteristics of the visual type and haptic…

A study was made to determine whether different methods of visual presentations would affect the retention rate of individuals with two distinct types of perception--visual and haptic. The visual type, according to a study by Viktor Lowenfeld in 1957, is marked by the following characteristics: (1) ability to see wholes, break them into visual…

The Swassing-Barbe Modality Index (SBMI) uses visual, auditory, and tactile inputs, but only reconstructed output, to measure children's modality strengths. In this experiment, the SBMI's three input modalities were crossed with two output modalities (spoken and drawn) in addition to the reconstructed standard to result in nine treatment…

This study was designed to determine the relationship between the Lowenfeldian visual-haptic (perceptual) and the Piagetian concrete-formal (operational reasoning) continua. The study also investigated the relationship between age, sex, academic goal, academic preference, and a person's perceptual aptitude or intellectual reasoning abilities.…