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Biomedical subjects

J J Jankowski

Publications and source records attributed to J J Jankowski.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Visual short-term memory in the first year of life: capacity and recency effects.

A span task was developed to assess the amount of information infants could hold in short-term memory. In this task, infants were presented with up to 4 items in succession and then tested for recognition by successively pairing each item with a novel one. A large sample of full-terms and low-birth-weight preterms (< 1,750 g) was tested longitudinally, at 5, 7, and 12 months of age. Results were similar for both groups: (a) Longer spans were more difficult, especially at the 2 younger ages; (b) memory capacity increased over the 1st year of life--whereas less than 25% of the sample could hold as many as 3-4 items in mind at once at the younger ages, nearly half could do so by 12 months of age; (c) there was a marked recency effect (greater memory for the final item) for spans of 3 and 4 at all ages; and (d) there were modest cross-age correlations, indicating that individual differences in memory capacity showed some stability from age to age.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed2001

Attention and recognition memory in the 1st year of life: a longitudinal study of preterm and full-term infants.

Several aspects of visual attention and their implications for recognition memory were examined in a longitudinal sample of full-term and preterm (birth weight < 1,750 g) infants seen at 5, 7, and 12 months of age. At all 3 ages, full-terms had shorter look durations, faster shift rates, less off-task behavior, and higher novelty scores than preterms. Both groups followed similar developmental trajectories, with older infants having shorter looks and more shifts. Infants were consistent in attentional style across problems of the same type, across problems that used different types of stimuli (faces and patterns), and across the familiarization and test phases of this paired-comparison design; there was also modest cross-age stability. Shorter looks and higher shift rates during familiarization were related to better recognition memory, with shift rate adding to prediction independently of either peak or mean look. These findings underscore the importance of attention to infant information processing.

Attention↗
PubMed1998

Continuity in tactual-visual cross-modal transfer: infancy to 11 years.

The present study demonstrated that individual differences in cross-modal transfer showed continuity over a 10-year span. Tactual-visual tasks, requiring visual recognition of shapes that had previously been felt but not seen, were given to full-term and preterm children at 2 ages, 1 and 11 years. Cross-modal performance showed a left-hand advantage at 11 years and, for both groups, cross-age correlations were significant when tactual exploration at 11 years was done with the left hand (r = .34-.36). The continuity showed some specificity in that the infant measure did not relate to other types of cross-modal performance at 11 years and was not dependent on aspects of spatial ability involving form perception. This continuity accounted for most of the previously reported relation of infant cross-modal ability to 11-year IQ.

Child↗
PubMed1997

The distribution of visual attention in infants.

In this study, the relationships between the length, number, and distribution of looks were investigated. To this end, 5-, 7-, and 9-month-old infants were familiarized for 24 or 36 s with two identical geometric forms and tested with a novel form paired with the familiar one. The distribution of individual looks to different portions of the display were monitored. At all ages, infants who had briefer looks (short lookers) demonstrated more broadly distributed looks than long lookers; they showed more looks, more shifts, and inspection of more stimulus areas. Also, the greater numbers of shifts exhibited by short lookers included more horizontal, vertical, and diagonal shifts than long lookers. During the test trials, short lookers, primarily in the 5- and 9-month sample, demonstrated greater novelty preference. Data from this study suggest that the distribution of attention is related to short and long looking as is found when visual attention is assessed at a micro level (e.g., Bronson, 1991).

Age Factors↗
PubMed1997

Infants' recognition of contour-deleted figures.

Infants' recognition of contour-deleted figures was investigated in four experiments using a habituation procedure. The results indicate that 12-month-old infants could recognize line drawings of figures that were missing 33%, 50%, or even as much as 66% of their contour. This was so whether the contour-deleted versions were used on habituation or on test: Intact figures were recognized after habituation to contour-deleted exemplars, and in most cases contour-deleted ones were recognized after habituation to the intact figure. The single failure appeared to be due to difficulty in discriminating between two extremely impoverished test stimuli. Findings from the final experiment, in which infants recognized complements of contour-deleted stimuli but not scrambled versions, suggested that they fill in the gaps of the contour-deleted figures so as to create a figural whole.

Female↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The relation of affect to attention and learning in infancy.

The relation of positive affect to attention and learning was examined in 5-, 7-, and 9-month-olds (N = 84). Affect and attention were assessed while the infants inspected a photograph. Affect was rated globally, for overall mood, and specifically, for amount of time smiling. Attention was indexed by the duration of the infant's longest (or peak) look, a measure previously linked to differential cognitive performance. At all ages, positive affect (shown by approximately half the infants) was associated with long look durations and slower learning, as assessed on a task in which infants learned to distinguish a familiar face from a series of novel faces. By contrast, neutral affect was associated with short looks and faster learning. Affect and look duration had synergistic effects, in that learning was faster than expected for infants who displayed both short looks and neutral affect. These findings are compatible with adult research that links positive affect to less analytical processing, and provide the first evidence that affect may be associated with the speed of processing differences implicated in short and long looking.

Affect↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Modifying the distribution of attention in infants.

In three experiments, the distribution and malleability of infant visual attention were studied in 5-month-olds (N = 72) while they inspected large geometric designs. In Experiment 1, we established that infants maintained their distribution of attention from a pretest to a familiarization phase. We also replicated and extended our previous findings that infants who examined targets with briefer, more numerous looks and shifts-short lookers-had novelty scores above chance, whereas long lookers demonstrated chance responding. In Experiment 2, different portions of the display were successively illuminated with red light. This manipulation induced long lookers to scan like short lookers during familiarization; they then showed novelty scores well above chance. A third experiment ruled out the simple presence of a red light as the source of this effect. In sum, then, these results suggest that the distribution of attention is malleable, and that a broader distribution of attention, as reflected in briefer and more numerous looks and shifts, can improve processing.

Attention↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Visual and auditory temporal processing, cross-modal transfer, and reading.

The present study reexamined the relevance of auditory and visual cross-modal matching to reading ability, an issue first addressed in a seminal study by Birch and Belmont (1964). By presenting all patterns to be matched as temporal sequences of tones and lights, including intramodal as well as cross-modal conditions, and covarying memory, three problems with the Birch and Belmont design were corrected. Results showed that poor readers had difficulty in perceiving temporal patterns generally: They did worse than good readers not only on cross-modal conditions but also on intramodal ones. These results were replicated in two tasks. Nonetheless, hierarchical regressions provided some indication that cross-modal abilities themselves are relevant to reading. For one of the two tasks, cross-modal performance contributed to the prediction of reading ability over and above intramodal performance. Poor readers also showed slower response times--a factor that contributed marginally to the prediction of reading independent of temporal processing.

Auditory Perception↗