William Schiff

Social Perception in Deaf and Hearing Adolescents

Slides containing facial caricatures and six social interaction cartoon films were presented to deaf and hearing adolescents (12 to 19 years old). Results indicated few age related differences in perceptual reports. A number of deaf-hearing differences suggested that these groups often differ in their extraction of social information from the eye region of the face, as well as from gross motor activity. Findings were discussed in relation to a number of recent findings in the literature.

Driving assessment with computer-video scenarios: more is sometimes better

Several factors are critical in designing effective simulator systems for driving research and driver assessment. First, there is cost, in terms of which, less is better. Costly systems are sometimes fine for specific research purposes, but they are impractical for most other purposes. Second, there is realism; in this case, more may be better, but we don’t know how much realism is really necessary for good prediction of actual driving behaviors. Recent evidence suggests that real-world clutter may enhance prediction, but it also makes interpreting research more difficult. More realism may increase cost, but this is not necessarily the case. Third, there is user-friendliness, in terms of which, again, more is better. Systems that are easier to operate require less-highly trained personnel; hence, increasing user-friendliness also decreases cost, especially for assessment. We demonstrated a highly user-friendly, low-cost, moderately realistic, and partly interactive computer-video driving research and assessment system. In recent research, we obtained multipleR values ofA7 for older drivers with only three to four scenarios predicting a real-world crash index.

Tactile identification of letters: A comparison of deaf and hearing childrens' performances

Abstract The letters of the alphabet were tactually presented to 293 deaf and hearing children and adolescents. Ss identified the letters by matching from memory or with visual letters present. Errors decreased significantly with age in both groups, and were significantly influenced by matching method. The deaf/hearing factor was not significant. The pattern of errors paralleled that found with letters presented visually to prereading children, older children, and adults. Tactual errors were predicted, for the most part, by E. J. Gibsons visual feature list for letters. Latencies were not strongly related to variables other than letter identification difficulty. Findings were discussed in the context of amodal or cognitive feature processing strategies.

Perceived and Remembered Duration of Films

Immediate and delayed judgments of the durations of two films were obtained. Although Ss tended to overestimate both films, differences in the style and content of the films, and in judgment conditions, failed to produce significant differences in the magnitude or accuracy of judgments. Results implied that Ss “store” “corrected” rather than “raw” temporal experience.

OBSERVATIONS ON DEVELOPMENT OF PERSON CONSTANCY

Differences in a childs recognition of his father under conditions of extreme alteration of facial stimuli (shaved beard and mustache) suggest loss of recognition at 7 mo. but rather complete person constancy by 18 mo.