The term learning styles (LS) describes the notion that individuals have a preferred modality of learning (i.e., vision, audition, or kinesthesis) and that matching instruction to this modality results in optimal learning. During the last decades, LS has received extensive criticism, yet they remain a virtual truism within education. One of the…

Categories are fundamental to everyday life and the ability to learn new categories is relevant across the lifespan. Categories are ubiquitous across modalities, supporting complex processes such as object recognition and speech perception. Prior work has proposed that different categories may engage learning systems with unique developmental…

Eight experiments, each with 10 observers in each condition, show that the visual search for Mueller-Lyer stimuli is based on complete configurations rather than component segments with preemption by low-level groups. Results support the view that rapid visual search can only access higher level, more ecologically relevant structures. (SLD)

Two-letter stimulus displays, differing in the magnitude of the horizontal spatial separation between the letters, were presented tachistoscopically to 10 retarded and 1 nonretarded adults. (Author/CL)

The study assessed transfer of visual training for myopia using two different training stimuli and a single subject A-B-C-A design with a male student volunteer. A procedure including stimulus fading and reinforcement (positive verbal feedback) was used to effectively improve performance on both behavioral acuity tests during the training phases…

Analysis of the data showed no significant correlation between scores from the two modalities, indicating that knowledge of a person's ability to understand speech in one system provides little information about the same person's ability to understand speech in the other. (Author/CL)

This study examined whether 49 adults with mild or moderate mental retardation could perform reliably enough on the Penn Facial Discrimination Task to make this a useful research measure for evaluating visual-receptive processing. Results found subjects generally performed well above chance level, that retest reliability was reasonably high, and…

This investigation into the effects of configural properties (properties determined by the interrelationships existing between component parts) used a selective attention task to determine whether intersection is a primary encoding feature or is constructed after slopes and heights are perceived. The method for encoding feature identification,…

This investigation of cognitive effort begins with a review of cognitive principles relating to memory and graphic encoding of information. The cognitive framework described allows explanation of improved memory due to reparsing of graphic representations. It also provides the basis for optimizing graphical material design to insure best retention…