Hemispheric specialization and the language abilities of autistic children

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between patterns of hemispheric specialization for speech processing and language ability in autistic children. 17 male autistic children, 6-18 years of age, and 17 normal children, matched for chronological age and gender, were tested. Measures of hemispheric asymmetry were differences in the averaged cortical evoked responses taken from right and left hemisphere scalp locations to linguistic and nonlinguistic auditory stimuli. A comprehensive battery of language tests was administered to autistic subjects. Autistic children's direction of hemispheric asymmetry in response to linguistic stimuli differed significantly from that of normal subjects. The majority of autistic subjects showed reversed (right hemisphere dominant), but not necessarily reduced, patterns of hemispheric asymmetry. Autistic children with more advanced language abilities were more likely to exhibit a normal direction of hemispheric asymmetry. The possibility that a shift from right to left hemisphere processing of speech occurs as the autistic child acquires spoken language is discussed.     

Recall of the pattern,sequence, and names of concepts presented in instructional diagrams

Forty-one high school students studied a series of five circuit diagrams. These either showed the electronic components as standard symbols or as squares. Each component was labelled and numbered. Students either had to remember the pattern of the elements in the diagram and draw it from memory, or they had to remember the elements in sequence. It was found that students who saw diagrams with symbols performed better on the sequence task and worse on the pattern task than the students who saw the diagrams with squares, whose performance on the two tasks was the opposite. A subsequent experiment found that requiring the students to label the elements in the diagrams did not interfere with their ability to remember the patterns of the components. It was concluded that students' success in completing tasks that require holistic or analytic processing depends upon the amount of detail in the elements in instructional diagrams. It was also suggested that designers of diagrams used to teach science can exercise some control over whether students process the information holistically or analytically by varying the amount of detail in the diagrams' elements.     

Hemispheres’ Modes of Cognitive Functions in a Finnish School: grades and behaviour

This research investigated the relationship between cognitive mode of functions, school grades, behaviour problems, untidiness and impulsiveness. Right ear dominance was not significant compared to the left ear dominance in music. Music was significant when subjects were left ear (right hemisphere) dominants (REAHD) and right eye (left hemisphere) dominants (LEYHD) had better grades compared to all left eye (right hemisphere) dominants at the 0.016<0.05 level. But also (REAHD)‐(LEYHD) had even better grades when compared to left eye and left ear dominance (right hemisphere) T‐test 0.001, and also with left ear hemisphere and right eye dominance 0.024 < 0.05. Mathematics and language were not statistically significant with SOLAT and conjugated lateral eye‐movement. The OKKIE questionnaire (untidiness, impulsiveness and behaviour problems) on the whole was not statistically significant, but the right hemisphere dominants were the only ones who scored the highest in many questions from the OKKIE questionnaire in behaviour problems and impulsiv‐ity either with SOLAT or lateral eye‐movement test from the 0.0569 to 0.0900 level, and thinking loud was significant to the 0.05 level. When the subjects were regrouped — left with SOLAT and right with conjugated lateral eye‐movement, and right with SOLAT and integrated with conjugated lateral eye‐movement — the mean scores were meaningful in religion and music. In technical/manual work, they had the worst mean scores compared to other combinations.     

Diagrams as aids to problem solving: Their role in facilitating search and computation

In two experiments, university students solved kinship problems as they studied family trees or lists of statements about who was whose parent. Subjects were given problems to solve requiring the application of rules to the statements or trees. In the first experiment, response latency was less for subjects seeing trees than for those seeing statements. It was also found that latency increased as the problems became more difficult. In the second experiment, response latencies for subjects seeing no rules were less on difficult problems than for subjects working with rules involving English and nonsense kinship terms. This difference disappeared with practice. These findings provided support for an account of diagram interpretation based on the facilitation of search and computation through the spatial arrangement of concepts. Data from the first experiment reported here were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA, March 1989.     

Schematic representations in arithmetical problem solving: Analysis of their impact on grade 4 students

While the value of ‘schematic representations’ in problem solving requires no further demonstration, the way in which students should be taught how to construct these representations invariably gives rise to various debates. This study, conducted on 146 grade 4 students in Luxembourg, analyzes the effect of two types of ‘schematic representation’ (diagrams vs. schematic drawings) on the solving of arithmetical problems. The results show that the presence of schematic representations has a clear positive effect on overall student performance and that a non negligible proportion of students manage to reuse the representations encountered in order to solve new problems. While showing an effect slightly in favor of diagrams as opposed to schematic drawings, our results do not really permit us to draw any conclusions about the form that these representations should take, in particular since a differential effect was observed depending on the type of problem.     

西经经度数加工中SNARC效应的反转

采用快速呈现刺激分类范式,以西经经度数为材料进一步探讨数字加工中的SNARC效应.结果发现：（1）在西经经度数加工中左手对大数字反应更快,右手对小数字反应更快,出现反转的SNARC效应.（2）数字在人脑以空间表征的方式表征在心理数字线上.但其表征方向并非完全取决于数字的大小信息,还受制于特定数字携带的位置信息.人们会根据特定数字的具体信息在心理数字线上灵活地表征数字.     

The Effect of a Video Produced by Young African People on Perceptions of Japanese Pupils about Africa

This paper examines whether a video produced by young African people could serve the goal of education for understanding ‘others’ in the context of Japan. This was investigated by assessing Japanese pupils’ perceptions of Africa before and after viewing a video produced by Kenyan students. Data were gathered from Japanese pupils’ drawings. The result suggests that, after seeing the test video, the pupils changed their perceptions of Africa significantly. This concluded that video can contribute to the goal of education for understanding ‘others’, but the effect must be reinforced by providing more information concerning Africa and encouraging interactions between Africa and Japan     

Early understanding and production of graphic symbols

Young children's ability to understand and produce graphic symbols within an environment of social communication was investigated in two experiments. Children aged 2, 3, and 4 years produced graphic symbols of simple objects on their own, used them in a social communicative game, and responded to experimenter's symbols. In Experiment 1 (N = 48), 2-year-olds did not effectively produce symbols or use the experimenter's symbols in the choice task, whereas 3- and 4-year-olds improved their drawings following the game and performed above chance with the experimenter's symbols. Ability to produce an effective graphic symbol was correlated with success on a task that measured understanding of the experimenter's symbols, supporting the claim that children's ability to produce a graphic symbol rests on the understanding of the symbolic function of pictures. In Experiment 2, 32 children aged 3 and 4 years improved their third set of drawings when they received feedback that their drawings were not effective communications. The results suggest that production and understanding of graphic symbols can be facilitated by the same social factors that improve verbal symbolic abilities, thereby raising the question of domain specificity in symbolic development.     

Adolescents' and adults' skills to visually communicate knowledge with graphics

Abstract

A study is reported that explored adolescents' and adults' abilities to comprehend and create visual displays (realistic pictures, graphics, diagrams) as effective means of communicating information. The comprehension abilities of our subjects were analysed through a test which included questions on six examples of different kinds of visual displays. Their production abilities were studied by examining the visual displays that the subjects spontaneously created on the content of a given text. An improvement with age was found in their comprehension abilities: older subjects performed better than younger ones in extracting more elaborated information from graphics. On the contrary, no remarkable improvement with age could be found in their production abilities. Subjects of all instructional groups showed difficulties in following conventional rules of representation with graphics and in using graphical features (colour, size, grid) to communicate information visually. The conclusion is drawn that instructional measures for improving subjects' visual literacy at different educational stages are needed.     

High school students' use of diagrams during reading

This study examines how high school students use diagrams and summaries during reading and the effects of such on comprehension. The roles of verbal and spatial ability are also examined. Seventy-four Year 7 (13-year-old) students each read a text presented on a computer screen. The text was presented one sentence at a time and subjects could call up a diagram or content-equivalent summary of the main ideas of the text at any time. Time to read the sentences and the adjunct aids was controlled by the subject and recorded by the computer. In addition, the computer kept a record of where in the text subjects made a text-to-aid move. After reading, the subjects completed a 10-minute filler task and then produced free recalls of the text. The free recalls were examined for the inclusion of details and main ideas. Path analyses showed a significant direct effect of verbal ability on the recall of details and main ideas as well as a significant indirect effect through time on diagram. Spatial ability was not found to have any effect on recall, either directly or indirectly. Analyses of text-to-diagram moves showed more inspections in the first few sentences followed by an essentially random inspection pattern. Instructional implications are discussed.     

The importance of design in learning from node-link diagrams

Diagrams organize by location. They give spatial cues for finding and recognizing information and for making inferences. In education, diagrams are often used to help students understand and recall information. This study assessed the influence of perceptual cues on reading behavior and subsequent retention. Eighty-two participants were assigned to one of four versions of a node-link diagram. The diagram consisted of header cells on the left and on top. These header cells organized the information in the body cells, which were connected by arrows. We used a between-subjects design with diagram orientation (header types on top or on the left) and cues orientation (arrows top–down or left–right) as independent variables. Reading process was measured through eye-tracking. Learning performance was assessed with a post test. The results showed that perceptual cues and header content had an additive effect on reading behavior. The reading patterns were strongest when the arrows and category headers both pointed in the same direction. This was reflected in recall. Participants performed better on post-test questions oriented on categories.     

Spatial ability and its role in organic chemistry: A study of four organic courses

The relationship between spatial ability and performance in organic chemistry was studied in four organic chemistry courses designed for students with a variety of majors including agriculture, biology, health sciences, pre-med, pre-vet, pharmacy, medicinal chemistry, chemistry, and chemical engineering. Students with high spatial scores did significantly better on questions which required problem solving skills, such as completing a reaction or outlining a multi-step synthesis, and questions which required students to mentally manipulate two-dimensional representations of a molecule. Spatial ability was not significant, however, for questions which could be answered by rote memory or by the application of simple algorithms. Students who drew preliminary figures or extra figures when answering questions were more likely to get the correct answer. High spatial ability students were more likely to draw preliminary figures, even for questions that did not explicitly require these drawings. When questions required preliminary or extra figures, low spatial ability students were more likely to draw figures that were incorrect. Low spatial ability students were also more likely to draw structures that were lopsided, ill-proportioned, and nonsymmetric. The results of this study are interpreted in terms of a model which argues that high spatial ability students are better at the early stages of problem solving described as “understanding” the problem. A model is also discussed which explains why students who draw preliminary or extra figures for questions are more likely to get correct answers.     

Children's Depictions of Different Views of the Human Figure

Children's ability to modify their canonical representations of the human figure was assessed by presenting them with a model in three different orientations. The subjects were 4‐year‐old tadpole‐drawers and conventional‐drawers aged 4, 6 and 8 years. Although the 6‐and 8‐year‐olds were more able to adapt their drawings so as to depict the figure's different orientations, many of the younger children and even the tadpole‐drawers also attempted to modify their figures.     

Diagram information and its organisation in memory: Exploring the role of skill and experience

Two contrasting methods of investigation were used to characterise the basis upon which the mental representation of a scientific diagram was organised in individuals having different levels of experience and skill in the interpretation of this type of diagram. Each of these methods is described and several important methodological issues are discussed. In the first method (the Card Sort method), subjects performed a three-stage grouping of diagram elements in a card sorting task that produced an hierarchical ordering of the information constituting the diagram. In the second method (the Copy-Recall method), subjects copied then produced drawn recall of a given diagram. Measurements of the sequence in which diagram elements were produced and the time intervals between each production were used to infer the underlying cognitive structuring involved in the mental representation of the diagram information. Questions are raised concerning the way resulting data can be analysed and interpreted most effectively. Specializations: Mental representation and processing of scientific diagrams, characteristics of explanatory diagrams, visual aspects of problem solving, instructional design.     

A Longitudinal Investigation of Chimpanzees' Understanding of Visual Perception

Seven chimpanzees were tested for their understanding of the intentional aspect of visual perception at 5 – 6 years of age and again at 7 years of age. They appeared not to understand that they should use a species-typical, visually based begging gesture in front of someone who could see them, as opposed to someone who could not. Four experiments that were conducted when these same subjects were adolescents are reported here. The results suggest that there was no development between 5 and 9 years of age in the animals' understanding of visual perception as an internal state of attention. The subjects appeared to learn procedural, stimulus-based rules related to the frontal orientation, the face, and the eyes of the experimenters. Even subjects most adept at these tasks appeared to rely on stimulus-based rule structures, not an attribution of "seeing."     

The Study Habits of Failing and Successful Students in the First Two Years of College

This research evaluated the effects of asking subjects to create personal examples of target concepts on their ability to recall, classify, and apply their conceptual knowledge. Subjects were 48 undergraduates at a large midwestern university. All subjects studied a passage on four psychological principles that contained application adjunct questions preceded by definition adjunct questions inserted after selected paragraphs. Application questions asked subjects to identify novel examples of target concepts, and definition questions asked subjects to identify appropriate definitions. One-half of the subjects also received instructions after each set of adjunct questions to write down two personal examples of the target concept (i.e., elaborate their conceptual knowledge). Subjects were also separated into high and low ability groups based on their performance on a series of ability tests. The results indicated that elaboration produced a significant main effect and ability by treatment interaction only on the application of the target concepts to problemsolving scenarios. An ability main effect was found for number of teaching examples recalled, number of novel examples correctly classified, and for number of concepts correctly applied to problem-solving scenarios.     

Handedness and the Development of Direction and Sequencing in Children's Drawings of People

The effect of age and handedness on directionality and sequence in drawing was studied in 389 right‐ and left‐handed children aged from 2 to 11 years. Preschool right‐handers were more likely to draw right to left and to produce circles in a clockwise direction. In contrast, preschool left handers drew left to right with anti‐clockwise circle production. By the age of 9 to 11 years right‐handers had switched to predominantly left to right drawing with anti‐clockwise circle production and left‐handers to right to left, drawing and clockwise circle production. Irrespective of handedness, preschool children tended to begin at the bottom of the drawing and work towards the top, whereas the older groups tended to draw from the top to the bottom. It is suggested that these rules of directionality and sequencing may influence how children respond to writing instruction.     

When the same is different. A comparison of the information processing strategies of deaf and hearing people.

In this study, the information processing strategies of Gallaudet University students who are profoundly and prelingually deaf were evaluated. The subjects demonstrated the highest levels of recognition to the left and right of the fixation point, often referred to as a reading strategy when found in hearing people. Additionally, they demonstrated higher levels of recognition at positions in the top right quadrant of the display, a pattern not found in hearing people. A main effect was found: subjects whose primary and secondary school backgrounds were oral and manual combined had significantly higher levels of recognition overall than did subjects from oral-only educational backgrounds. Differences in background did not interact with strategy use in this study. These findings lead to the conclusion that the information processing strategies of deaf people need to be evaluated closely before general conclusions can be made. Alternative means for evaluating these types of findings are suggested.     

基于Stroop实验范式的字母顺序信息自动加工研究

采用Stroop实验范式,要求被试快速判断出现字母的颜色以考察字母的顺序信息能否被自动加工。结果发现：被试对I之前的字母用左手反应更快,I之后的字母用右手反应更快,在实验研究中出现了SNARC效应;在字母颜色分类任务中出现 SNARC 效应,说明字母的顺序信息可以得到自动加工。同时本实验为研究SNARC效应的加工机制提供了一种简单易行的新范式。