Describes two experiments that examined whether the amplitude of the human eyeblink by a mild tap between the eyebrows can be increased if a brief tone is presented simultaneously with the tap and how these effects change from newborn infants to adults. (HOD)

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…

Results reaffirm the notion that retarded individuals are less adept at recognizing familiar forms haptically than visually. (Author)

British and Zambian children were compared on their abilities to reproduce patterns, from tactile and visual presentations, by modeling, drawing, and gesturing. Age, sex, and intelligence variables were analyzed. Results suggested that cross-cultural differences in these tasks reflect differences in specific perceptual skills rather than broad…

RECENTLY MUCH ATTENTION HAS BEEN FOCUSED ON THE SUBJECT OF CONCEPT FORMATION IN CHILDREN. THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPATIAL PERCEPTION IS AN IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THIS, AND ONE IMPORTANT PART OF SPATIAL PERCEPTION IS HAPTIC PERCEPTION--THE RECOGNITION OF OBJECTS BY TOUCH. THIS STUDY IS A LONGITUDINAL INVESTIGATION OF THE RETENTION OF HAPTIC ABILITIES…

This document reports on a study of how the eye and the hand become functionally coordinated during growth. A specific question researched is "How do children use their hands as perceptual tools for exploring objects in order to acquire information about them?" It was assumed that a pre-school child would have evolved a form of eye-hand…

The recognition performance for segmental stimuli was compared when presented through a single-channel tactile device and through a 24-channel vocoder. Both consonant and vowel stimuli were tested under visual only, tactile only, and visual/tactile conditions. Results indicated no significant performance differences for the 12 artificially…

In the present study we investigated the relationship between suicidal behavior and aspects of bodily perception and parental care. Measures of bodily perception included measures of tactile sensitivity, body attitudes, and body experiences. Measures of parental care included parental bonding, negative and positive touch, and early maltreatment.…

Reports results of the administration of a battery of tests of oral language skills to blind braille readers (N=15). Three skills were tested: phoneme deletion, sentence completion, and morphological analysis. Participants were congenitally blind high school students. Subjects differed from sighted readers only in the ability to perform…

Explains haptic computer interfaces for Web sites that relay touch-sensory feedback to the user. Discusses the importance of touch to cognition and learning; whether haptics can improve performance and learning; haptic interfaces for accessibility for blind and physically impaired users; comparisons of haptic devices; barriers to implementation;…

A study determined the effectiveness of computer-aided drafting (CAD) and standard drafting instruction on the ability of students with differing visual-haptic perceptual styles to solve orthographic projection problems. A 2x2x2 factorial design was chosen to compare two levels of perceptual style with two levels of treatment and two levels of…

A series of studies underway at the Audience Research Facility at MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) are examining the influence of interactive video on learning and entertainment television viewing. The first study compared the learning of spatial content from interactive (user controlled video games) versus observational…

This volume of the 30th annual proceedings of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education conference presents: plenary panel papers; research forum papers; short oral communication papers; and poster presentation papers from the meeting. Information relating to discussion groups and working sessions is also provided.…