Given the inclusion of sensory reactivity as a diagnostic criterion for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and the theorized etiological role of sensory reactivity in the development of autism, adequate sensory measures of sensory reactivity in autism, including measures extending to use in infancy, are needed. Adequate sensory measurement relies on…

Sensory Over-Responsivity (SOR) is an increasingly recognized challenge among children with neurodevelopmental concerns (NDC). To investigate, we characterized the incidence of auditory and tactile over-responsivity (AOR, TOR) among 82 children with NDC. We found that 70% of caregivers reported concern for their child's sensory reactions. Direct…

While atypical sensory processes have become central to scientific explanatory models of autism, such models usually do not explicitly address first-person experiences of sensory processes by autistic individuals. Detailed phenomenological research of this subjective domain is nonetheless essential to ground explanatory accounts in the actual…

The typical trigonometry, precalculus, or calculus student might not agree that logarithms are hot stuff, but we drew motivation from chili peppers to help students get a better taste for logarithms. The Scoville scale, which ranges from 0 to 16,000,000, has been the sole quantitative metric to measure the pungency (spiciness) of peppers since its…

Various theories suggest that human beings differ regarding their susceptibility to environmental stimuli, some of these theories have their origin in the field of developmental psychology. From an evolutionary perspective, it has been assumed that this susceptibility trait follows a normal distribution in the population, with a minority being…

There are many important phenomena involved in human functioning that are unnoticed, misunderstood, not applied, or do not pique the interest of the scientific community. Among these, "autonomous sensory meridian response" ("ASMR") and "frisson" are two very noteworthy instances that may prove to be therapeutically…

Adults' judgments of another person's gaze reflect both sensory (e.g., perceptual) and nonsensory (e.g., decisional) processes. We examined how children's performance on a gaze categorization task develops over time by varying uncertainty in the stimulus presented to 6- to 11 year-olds (n = 57). We found that younger children responded…

Each day, people encounter stimuli they find unpleasant. Some children with autism may require systematic instruction to acquire the communication skills necessary to request the termination of such aversive stimuli. We taught 2 school-aged boys with autism a mand (e.g., signing "stop") that could be used to escape a variety of aversive…

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are often associated with aberrant responses to sensory stimuli, which are thought to contribute to the social, communication, and repetitive behavior deficits that define ASD. However, there are few studies that separate aberrant sensory responses by individual sensory modality to assess modality-specific…

"Automatic imitation" is a type of stimulus-response compatibility effect in which the topographical features of task-irrelevant action stimuli facilitate similar, and interfere with dissimilar, responses. This article reviews behavioral, neurophysiological, and neuroimaging research on automatic imitation, asking in what sense it is "automatic"…

The purpose of this study was to test the effects of playful physical contact as an establishing operation (EO) on correct academic responses for four-year-old preschool students with developmental disabilities who functioned at the pre-speaker and pre-listener levels of verbal behavior. Two males and one female served as participants who attended…

Previous research implies that stereotypic behavior tends to be maintained by the sensory consequences produced by engaging in the response. Few investigations, however, have focused on vocal stereotypy. The current study examined the noncommunicative vocalizations of 4 children with an autism spectrum disorder. First, functional analyses were…

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that the neural efficiency of the human brain as measured by parameters of sensory evoked potentials varies depending on the sensory input used within the same subject. The subjects were 213 children aged eight to 16 years, selected randomly. Computer analysis of EEG data was performed in order to…

A theory of visual information acquisition and visual memory is described that conjoins two models that have been used to describe low-level perceptual and higher level cognitive processes. Six experiments with 21 adult observers generally support the theory, although some weakness is discussed. (SLD)

A scale was prepared for measuring the effects of indirect suggestion upon perception. Three categories were included: 1) distorting the interpretation of presented stimuli, 2) inducing sense-impressions in the absence of adequate stimuli, and 3) producing insensitivity to stimuli that are objectively present. (Author/RC)