Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2008. Graduate Programme in Biology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 178-192). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR51690

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Texas Christian University, 2006. / Title from dissertation title page (viewed Sept. 11, 2006). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Psychology, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--York University, 2005. Graduate Programme in Computer Science. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-117). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url%5Fver=Z39.88-2004&res%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss &rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR11930

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-68)

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon Graduate Center, 1985.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 216-223). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Chapter One introduces the theory which is based on three postulates derived from pragmatism, empiricism and constructivism respectively. Veridical perception is seen not as reflecting the world as it is in some absolute sense, but as providing guidance for effective action. Its ability to do this depends on its relationship to active touch. This relies on their both being forms of action, i.e. they both consist of the operation of schemata which are at the same time guides for action and products of action. The second chapter relates how versions of these postulates have appeared, singly or in pairs, in previous theories especially those of Berkeley, Kant and Schelling. Then MacMurray's theory, which embodies all three postulates is introduced, and this is related to Gibson's theory. Chapter Three discusses how the key terms in the theory, image, percept and schema, relate to each other, and argues that they all reflect the same underlying psychological process. Chapter Four is concerned with dynamic and hedonic aspects, with how perception relates to motivation and feeling. Conventional theories see any such relation as external and associative while those based on perceptual schemata allow both external and internal relationships. These different sorts of theory are compared over a wide range of phenomena. Only the schemata based theory can account for all of the effects. Chapter Five starts with a brief discussion of the limitations of information processing type models in psychology, particularly with respect to dynamic aspects. With these in mind, it goes on to develop an outline model. Construction of the model draws attention to two important aspects of the theory; the non-existence of a pure metric representation and the lack of any strictly causal link between retinal stimulation and percept. Chapter Six examines the literature on adaptation to optical re-arrangement, a convenient method of studying the relationship between spatial vision and touch which is a key issue for the theory. While the crucial re-arrangement is impossible to produce, the weight of evidence supports the sort of theory proposed here. Chapter Seven compares this theory to others, particularly Neisser's, and suggests other areas of application in both visual perception and general psychology.

This study was designed to examine a number of factors which might affect the ability to equate auditory and visual non-verbal stimuli as measured by performance on the auditory-visual integration (AVI) test of Birch & Belmont (1964, 1965) and Kahn & Birch (1968) . In this test S is presented with an auditory dot pattern and is required to identify the one of three printed visual dot patterns which is the same as the one heard. Short-term auditory memory, stimulus length and sex differences were studied as possible factors affecting performance on the AVI test. A random selection, from three elementary schools, of 108 third-grade children, 54 males and 54 females, were assigned to one of two groups. Two modified forms of the AVI test defined as the consecutive presentation and the simultaneous presentation, were administered, one to each group of Ss. The first of these tests presented the auditory and visual, stimuli consecutively; that is, the auditory stimulus, after a delay of 5 sec., was followed by three visual stimuli presented one at a time, of which one corresponded to the auditory stimulus. It was proposed that this presentation format would involve short-term auditory memory as a possible factor affecting the judgments of auditory-visual equivalence. The second test presented the auditory and visual stimuli simultaneously as pairs; that is, there was no delay between the auditory and visual stimuli. Each of three visual stimuli was presented simultaneously with the same auditory stimulus. It was assumed that this presentation would eliminate short-term auditory memory as a factor affecting auditory-visual integration competence. It was found that third-grade children were able to process the simultaneous presentation of auditory and visual non-verbal stimuli, at certain stimulus lengths, with more facility than they were when the same stimuli were presented in the consecutive mode. This result supported the hypothesis that there might be a significant short-term auditory memory factor in performance of the AVI test and that this memory component might be significantly related to judgments of auditory-visual equivalence. The position of the visual stimuli was also found to affect the recognition of auditory and visual pairs in the AVI test. The effect, significant though small, occurred for both the consecutive and simultaneous presentations, indicating that interference or decay of sensory processing did occur whether the presentation was consecutive or simultaneous for stimuli in the third position. It was suggested that interference and/or decay in short-term memory, might account for the impaired ability to make correct judgments of auditory-visual equivalence for stimuli in position three as compared to stimuli in positions one and two for the consecutive presentation. The assumption of proactive interference was invoked to account for the occurrence of the same phenomenon in the simultaneous presentation. Another finding indicated that stimulus length per se might not be a significant factor affecting the difficulty of auditory-visual equivalence judgments, but that a factor related to length might be. The results are consistent with a theory of recoding input stimuli and suggest that an increase in the number of units of stimuli to be retained and not the number of stimuli per unit, might be the factor affecting the difficulty level of auditory-visual equivalence judgments. Sex of the children was not found to affect performance on the AVI tests significantly. Further research considerations in the area of AVI were advanced. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate