Examines evidence that the research community studying infants' object concept and the community concerned with adult object-based attention have been studying the same natural kind. Maintains that the discovery that the object representations of young infants are the same as the object files of mid-level visual cognition has implications for both…

Eight experiments examined abilities of 3- to 4-year-olds to reorient themselves and locate a hidden object in an open circular space furnished with landmark objects. Findings showed that children failed to use geometric configuration of objects to reorient themselves. Children successfully located the object in relation to a geometric…

Three experiments assessed the extent to which statistical learning generates novel word-like units, rather than probabilistically-related strings of sounds. Found that 8-month-olds' listening preferences were affected by the context (English versus nonsense) in which items from the familiarization phase were embedded during testing. Confirmed…

Examined role of isolated words in early vocabulary development. Found that isolated words are a reliable feature of speech to infants; that they include a variety of word types; and that a substantial fraction of words infants produce are words that mothers speak in isolation. Frequency of hearing words in isolation better predicts learning than…

Compared phonological awareness of younger prereading children and older literate children from different linguistic backgrounds (Hong Kong and Guangzhou children speaking Chinese and New Zealand children speaking English). Found that both orthographic and spoken language experience affect the development of phonological skills, implying a…

Monitored college students' eye movements while they produced the sentence frame "The A and the B are above the C" to describe three pictured objects, with B or C varying in codability and frequency of the dominant name. Found that speakers gazed longer at lower codability and lower frequency objects before naming them. (Author/KB)

Examined two possible explanations for the arithmetic tie effect: faster encoding of tie problems versus faster access to arithmetic facts. Found that the tie effect vanished with heterogeneous addition problems, and for seven out of eight participants, the effect vanished with heterogeneous multiplication problems. Concludes that the tie effect…

Describes experimental approaches used to demonstrate perception without awareness. Maintains that experimental findings based on all four approaches lead to the conclusion that stimuli are perceived even when observers are unaware of the stimuli. Asserts that future research should assess the functions of information perceived without awareness…

Summarizes a theoretical framework and set of hypotheses aimed at accounting for consciousness in neurobiological terms. Discusses the functional neuroanatomy of nuclei in the brainstem reticular formation. Notes that the views presented are compatible with the idea that the reticular formation modulates the electrophysiological activity of the…

Argues that accounting for introspection within a theory of consciousness can be achieved through constructing information- processing models that account for "Type-C" processes in which awareness of the stimulus is necessary for an intentional action. Suggests that the Shallice (1988) framework provides an initial account of Type-C processes and…

Functionalists about consciousness identify consciousness with a role; physicalists identify consciousness with an implementer of that role. The global workspace theory of consciousness fits the functionalist perspective, but the physicalist sees consciousness as a biological phenomenon that implements global accessibility. (Author)

Maintains that theorists are converging on a version of the global neuronal workspace model of consciousness, but that there are residual confusions to be dissolved. Asserts that global accessibility is not the "cause" of consciousness, it "is" consciousness. Argues that like fame, consciousness is not a momentary condition or a purely…

Three experiments examined the relative importance of original function and current function in artifact categorization for young children and adults. It was concluded that 6-year-olds have begun to organize their understanding of artifacts around the notion of original function, whereas 4-year-olds have not. Data were examined in terms of how…

Notes young children's fast mapping ability for word and fact learning. Finds children's extension of a new word to novel objects from same category but lack of extension for new facts, as replicated by Waxman and Booth, unsurprising. Poses more interesting question: is word learning done solely through more general cognitive systems or through…

This study investigated whether 9-month-olds used phonotactic cues to segment words from fluent speech. Results suggested that 9-month-olds use probabilistic phonotactics to segment speech into words, and that high- probability between-word clusters are interpreted as both word onsets and word offsets. (Author/KB)