Thesis (Ph.D.)--Georgia State University, 2005. / Title from title screen. Rose Sevcik, committee chair; Robin Morris, Mary Ann Romski, Byron Robinson, committee members. 194 p. [numbered xii, 180] ; ill. (some col.) Description based on contents viewed Feb. 26, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 168-180).

The purpose of this study was to further investigate the relationship between the social interaction during indoor free play and the self-concept of four-year-old children of middle socioeconomic status who attended day care centers.From the three centers involved in the study, a total of fifty-nine children qualified as subjects, with reference to age, parental permission, and socioeconomic status. Subjects were eliminated from the study if they were absent during ten or more observations; this accounted for the loss of eleven subjects. Withdrawals from centers accounted for an additional loss of three subjects. Complete data were collected for a total of forty-five subjects. The mean age of the twenty-three males and twenty-two females was fifty-four months.Two instruments were used to collect data. The Parten Gradient of Social Participation was used to assess social interaction; each level was characterized by social interaction.The gradient consisted of six levels of observable play behaviors, and each level was assigned a score. Three research assistants were trained in the use of the gradient. Each subject was observed by one of the assistants for one interval of one-minute duration on consecutive school days until a total of twenty observations had been made. After all observations were completed, the total social interaction score was computed for each subject. Then all total scores were rank ordered and the middle three scores were removed to establish a median split. Subjects whose scores were above the median were classified as interactive, and subjects whose scores were below the median were classified as non-interactive.The Children's Self-Social Constructs Test was used to assess self-concept. This instrument yielded four sub-scores: (1) self-esteem; (2) social interest; (3) identification with significant others; and (4) realism for size.Two null hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of significance. The major hypothesis stated that there is no difference in the mean scores obtained on the self-concept test by the group of interactive children and the group of non-interactive children. The other hypothesis stated that there is no difference in the mean scores obtained on the self-concept test by males and females; this hypothesis was formed to allow for the removal of variance due to sex. Data were analyzed with a computer program of a two-way multivariate analysis of variance. Neither null hypothesis was rejected.The following conclusions were drawn from the study: (1) the mean self-concept scores of the interactive and non-interactive children did not differ significantly; (2) the mean self-concept scores of males and females did not differ significantly; and (3) theories stating that persons with poor self-concepts avoid social interaction are inapplicable to preschool children.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-154). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 2003. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-138).

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The primary purpose of the present study was to examine various aspects of local and global perception in groups of children and young adults with average ages of 6, 8, 10, 12, and 22 years. The aspects examined included developmental differences in RT for local and global visual information, the influence of filtering on global and local perception, and role of distracter congruency and compatibility on processing local and global stimuli. At a general level, the findings revealed that participants processed global faster than local stimuli. With the presence of distracters, 6 and 8-year-old participants demonstrated slower RTs for global targets relative to local targets. Distracter congruency or compatibility did not differentially affect global and local processing. However, congruency did appear to be related to differential performance for 6-year old males versus females. These results indicate that the underlying processes involved in global and local perception may be separate, with global perception relying on attentional mechanisms to a greater extent than local perception.

The development of reflexive and voluntary shifts of visual attention, as well as relations between the two forms of shifting was examined in three groups of children (5-, 7-, and 9-years-old), one group of young adults (24-years-old), and two groups of senior adults (young seniors: 69-years-old, old seniors: 81-years-old). The task entailed the detection and response to the presentation of a target (black dot) in one of four possible locations in the visual field. The dependent measure was reaction time (RT). The extent to which flash cues facilitated or inhibited reflexive orienting was determined through presentation of nonpredictive abrupt onset peripheral flash cues prior to the target. Arrow facilitation and inhibition was measured by shifts of attention initiated in response to predictive central arrow cues. Relations between reflexive and voluntary shifts of attention were gauged by the degree to which flash and arrow facilitation and inhibition were observed in response to the presentation of both arrow and flash cues together in one trial. Conditions varied with regard to the validity of the location cues (accurate or inaccurate information regarding the location of the subsequent target) and the length of the interval between the cue and the target (SOA: 185 or 875 ms). All age groups demonstrated flash facilitation with the flash cue alone, demonstrating similar patterns of reflexive orienting across the lifespan. However, the three groups of children demonstrated the largest flash cue effects suggesting that they had the most difficulty ignoring the nonpredictive flash cues. With the arrow cue alone, young adults, and young and old senior adults were more efficient (faster RTs) in their execution of voluntary shifts, however, all age groups utilized the arrow cues to orient attention strategically and in doing so experienced similar patterns of arrow facilitation. When both flash and arrow cues were presented together, the 9-year-old children, young

No description available.

The developmental process of audiovisual speech perception was examined in this experiment using the McGurk paradigm (McGurk & MacDonald, 1976), in which a visual recording of a person saying a particular syllable is synchronized with the auditory presentation of another syllable. Previous studies have shown that audiovisual speech perception in adults and older children is very influenced by the visual speech information but children under five are influenced by the auditory input almost exclusively (McGurk & MacDonald, 1976; Massaro, 1984; and Massaro, Thompson, Barron, & Laren, 1986). In this investigation 46 children aged between 4:7 and 12:4, and 15 adults were presented with conflicting audiovisual syllables made according to the McGurk paradigm. The results indicated that the influence of auditory information decreased with age, while the influence of visual information increased with age. In addition, an adult-like response pattern was observed in only half of the children in the oldest child subject group (10-12 years old) suggesting that the integration of auditory and visual speech information continues to develop beyond the age of twelve.

Attentional orienting involves two neuroanatomically and functionally separate components, the reflexive and voluntary attentional sub-systems, which interact to orient attention on the environment. Three experiments, in which a cueing paradigm was used, examined reflexive and voluntary orienting over later childhood development (i.e., 8--14 years old) in order to explore the mechanisms underlying the development of the control of attentional orienting. Experiments 1 and 2 explored whether reflexive and voluntary orienting develop in parallel, and examined the influence of cue predictability on attentional orienting during development. Experiment 3 explored the role of explicit instructions in the influence of cue predictability on voluntary and reflexive orienting. The results indicate that the development of attentional orienting over later childhood is a reflection of the operation of an underlying mechanism, general developmental changes in speed of processing. Apart from this mechanism, the efficiency of attentional orienting remains the same across age. In addition, the influence of cue predictability on attentional orienting reflects the operation of a low-level mechanism which operates independently of strategic influences; this mechanism may be covariance detection and judgment. The implications of these conclusions for modeling attentional orienting, and the development thereof, are considered.