Reading is a highly complex process in which integrative neurocognitive functions are required. Visual-spatial abilities play a pivotal role because of the multi-faceted visual sensory processing involved in reading. Several studies show that children with developmental dyslexia (DD) fail to develop effective visual strategies and that some reading difficulties are linked to visual-spatial defi...

Contributions to this Theme Section (TS) articulate an increasingly powerful synthesis in ecology: understanding animal perceptual abilities lends insight into ecological interactions that, in turn, determine fundamental properties of populations of organisms and communities. This synthesis, often referred to as sensory ecology (e.g. Dusenbery 1992), has its antecedents in diverse fields rangin...

The strong programme of research in the study and development of cognitive technologies today is based on the hypothesis that these technologies are not only technical means which enable us to enhance our calculating, memorising or perceptive abilities, but that they actually play a key role in the constitution of human experience. The aim of this article is to provide this hypothesis with expe...

This study examined relationships between three sensory and communication abilities and two areas of nursing home resident behavior. Data from 18,873 nursing home residents include measures of hearing, visual, and communication abilities, and social engagement and time spent in activities. Increasing level of visual impairment is associated with low levels of social engagement and low time in a...

It has been hypothesised that auditory processing may be enhanced in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We tested auditory discrimination ability in 72 adolescents with ASD (39 childhood autism; 33 other ASD) and 57 IQ and age-matched controls, assessing their capacity for successful discrimination of the frequency, intensity and duration differences in pairs of sounds. At the group level, audito...

BACKGROUND Nearly half of stroke patients have impaired sensory discrimination, however, the neural structures that support post-stroke sensory function have not been described. OBJECTIVES 1) To evaluate the role of the primary somatosensory (S1) cortex in post-stroke sensory discrimination and 2) To determine the relationship between post-stroke sensory discrimination and structural integrit...