Call number: LD2668 .T4 1979 S46 / Master of Science

The purpose of this study was to compare the visual-motor integrative abilities of preschool children with their articulatory and syntactical development. Two questions were posed: Do children having accelerated visual-motor integrative skills perform at a higher level than children having delayed visual-motor integration skills in 1) their articulation proficiency, and 2) their syntactical abilities?

This was an experimental study to compare the affective and cognitive responses of female and male college students to singleimage, multi-image and time compressed single-image presentations. Three initial sets of 120 images were produced so that each presentation contained the same visual information, and no narration or sound track was used with any of the presentations. Ninety-seven subjects, in intact classes, participated in the experiment. Each class was shown one of the three slide presentations in a special projection room. Immediately after viewing a particular presentation, subjects were asked to complete a semantic differential which was used to measure attitudes toward the method of presentation; next subjects completed a multiple choice test concerning the cognitive information presented in the program viewed. The two-way analysis of variance of the semantic differential scores indicated no significant difference in the attitude of the subjects toward any presentation format. The two-way analysis of variance of the test for the amount of cognitive information retained indicated that there was a significant difference between the males and females in the amount of cognitive information retained with the females retaining more than the males. There was a significant interaction between presentation format and sex of the subject on the amount of cognitive information retained. Females out-performed males for both the multi-image presentation and the single-image presentation, but males performed better on the time compressed single-image presentation. The Pearson product-moment correlation between scores on the test for amount of cognitive information retained and the scores on the semantic differential was -0.05. / Ed. D.

The current study investigated the task performance and subjective preference for two color displays with differing image generation technologies, the standard cathode ray tube shadow mask (CRT) display and the newer liquid crystal/cathode ray tube (LC/CRT) display. Six subjects performed three different information processing tasks using each of the two color display technologies and expressed their display preference via evaluation questionnaires. Ambient illumination measurements were obtained to determine preferred conditions for each display. A four-way factorial design was used to collect task performance data and ambient illumination preferences; performance data were collected as errors per unit task quantity for each of the task types. Subjective evaluations consisted of 20 five-interval bipolar adjective scales and a forced choice rating on eight display parameters. An analysis of variance procedure and post-hoc Newman-Keuls analyses were employed in the analyses of the performance and subjective bipolar adjective scale data; the forced choice rating scales were evaluated using the Sign Test. The task performance results indicate that neither display produced better task performance. The subjective data revealed mixed results; while the bipolar adjective scales indicate no differences between the two display technologies, the forced choice rating shows a preference for the LC/CRT display on some display parameters. A significant difference between the two displays was demonstrated for ambient illumination preferences; the LC/CRT was viewed in greater ambient illumination than the CRT display. / Master of Science

Much concern has been expressed about the ability of the visual display terminal to provide adequate stimuli for accommodation. As a result it has been hypothesized that an observer may have to continually refocus to maintain accommodation on the display and this contributes to the visual fatigue experienced by VDT users. The increased use of multicolor CRTs in the workplace adds yet another factor, chromatic aberration, to affect the observers' accommodation to information presented on the CRT. Two experiments were run to determine the effect of viewing characters of one chromaticity and purity on a background of another chromaticity or purity or chromaticity and purity. The observer's accommodation response was continuously sampled throughout the presentation of each target/background combination. Mean accommodation response and the standard deviation of the mean accommodation response were then calculated to ascertain the effect the target background combination had on the observers' accommodation response. The observers' were also required to perform a visual performance task for each target/background combination. The data collected indicate that chromatic characters when observed on chromatic background do not provide a strong stimulus for accommodation. Mean changes in the observers accommodation response were all within the depth of field except when characters were viewed on blue backgrounds. The variability in the observers accommodation response was not found to be a good predictor of image quality where only color contrast exists between foreground and surround. Task performance was highly correlated with effective contrast between the target and background as quantified by uniform color space modeling. / Ph. D.

Eight-letter upper case arrays containing vertically symmetrical (VS), e.g., A-T-U-W, horizontally symmetrical (HS), e.g., B-D-C-E, doubly symmetrical (DS), e.g., H-I-O-X, and non-symmetrical (NS), e.g., F-G-L-R, were tachistoscopically exposed bilaterally for 50 ms. to fifteen male and fifteen female undergraduates. The number of letters correctly recognized for each classification condition was used as the criterion measure. A fixed, two-factor design with the second factor being repeated was analyzed using a repeated measures analysis of variance. Consequent to testing Null Hypothesis 1 (that there is no difference between the classification conditions), a check was made for the presence of a significant interaction between gender and classification condition (Null Hypothesis 2). Because Null Hypothesis 1 was rejected and there was no interaction present, the classification group means were tested using a post hoc multiple comparison procedure identified as Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference (HSD) test. Test statistics for the Tukey HSD contrasts found that significantly more VS letters were reported than DS, HS, and NS letters. Significantly more DS letters were reported than HS and NS letters. No difference in report accuracy was found between HS and NS letters. This is in sharp contrast to studies that count only responses reported in the same left-to-right order as the tachistoscopic presentation, i.e., order of report. Previous studies using an order of report method found vertically asymmetrical letters to be reported more accurately than vertically symmetrical ones. The present study disregarded order of from an order of report. It was emphasized that the subject maintain focus on the fixation dot and not attempt to scan the letter-array pattern in a left-to-right direction, as the lettersdid not have to be reported in their respective positions. A different explanation for the Harcum (1964) directionality and Bryden (1968) masking interpretations follows from an order of report method activating additional processing mechanisms such as working memory that are ordinarily not needed to process letter features.Results obtained by the present study are discussed in terms of a reversal of spatial information for touch, kinesthesis, and sound to match the brain’s reversed retino-cortical projection. / Department of Educational Psychology

Visual perception plays a fundamental role in a prospective learner’s ability to learn to read and spell; as well as in the accomplishment of written and numeracy tasks. Aspects of visual perception are facilitating functions and skills which a learner requires for acquiring basic literacy and numeracy proficiency. Yet, despite this importance, there exists no test that is standardised for the South African Foundation Phase population which adequately measures distinct visual perceptual aspects of individual learners. The study was undertaken in an attempt to alleviate the dilemma of the South African Foundation Phase learners who tend to experience visual perceptual challenges that hamper their level of academic learning, performance and competency. Firstly, the literature study explored the construct of visual perception and focussed on the relationship between vision, visual perception and academic learning, performance and competency. Secondly, in order to adequately measure the South African Foundation Phase population’s visual perceptual level of proficiency a new test was developed. Based on the literature study and the empirical investigation recommendations to educational psychologists, teachers, parents and learners have been made. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Guidance and Counselling)

Visual perception plays a fundamental role in a prospective learner’s ability to learn to read and spell; as well as in the accomplishment of written and numeracy tasks. Aspects of visual perception are facilitating functions and skills which a learner requires for acquiring basic literacy and numeracy proficiency. Yet, despite this importance, there exists no test that is standardised for the South African Foundation Phase population which adequately measures distinct visual perceptual aspects of individual learners. The study was undertaken in an attempt to alleviate the dilemma of the South African Foundation Phase learners who tend to experience visual perceptual challenges that hamper their level of academic learning, performance and competency. Firstly, the literature study explored the construct of visual perception and focussed on the relationship between vision, visual perception and academic learning, performance and competency. Secondly, in order to adequately measure the South African Foundation Phase population’s visual perceptual level of proficiency a new test was developed. Based on the literature study and the empirical investigation recommendations to educational psychologists, teachers, parents and learners have been made. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Guidance and Counselling)

Contemporary understanding of human visual spatial attention rests on the hypothesis of a top-down control sending from cortical regions carrying higher-level functions to sensory regions. Evidence has been gathered through functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) experiments. The Frontal Eye Field (FEF) and IntraParietal Sulcus (IPS) are candidates proposed to form the frontoparietal attention network for top-down control. In this work we examined the influence patterns between frontoparietal network and Visual Occipital Cortex (VOC) using a statistical measure, Granger Causality (GC), with fMRI data acquired from subjects participated in a covert attention task. We found a directional asymmetry in GC between FEF/IPS and VOC, and further identified retinotopically specific control patterns in top-down GC. This work may lead to deeper understanding of goal-directed attention, as well as the application of GC to analyzing higher-level cognitive functions in healthy functioning human brain. / by Wei Tang. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Visual perception is a psychological construct that describes the awareness of visual sensations and arise from the interactions of the individual or observer in the external environment together with the physiology of the observer’s visual system. A variety of theories of the development of visual perception have led to the development of different psychometric measures aimed at quantifying the cognitive construct. The Visual Perceptual Aspects Test was developed by Clutten (2009) to measure nine different constructs of visual perception. The original VPAT was validated using content and construct validity based on a Western Cape sample. However, to the researcher’s knowledge, a factor analysis had not yet been conducted on the VPAT to determine the factor validity of the test. Furthermore, no measures of validity or reliability had been conducted on the VPAT using a sample outside of the Western Cape. The aim of this research is to validate the hypothesised nine factor structure of the Visual Perceptual Aspects Test, using a confirmatory factor analysis, exploratory structural equation model, a bifactor confirmatory factor analysis and a bifactor exploratory structural equation model. The results of the analysis showed marginal model fit of the VPAT with the sample data, with sufficient levels of reliability for certain sub-tests. However, the VPAT did not meet significant levels of validity or reliability of the proposed model structure of the VPAT for the sample group of learners based in the Eastern Cape. / Psychology / M.A. (Research Psychology)