Early Experience and Visual Information Processing in Perceptual and Reading Disorders: Proceedings of a Conference Held October 27-30, 1968, at Lake Mohonk, New York, in Association With the Committee on Brain Sciences, Division of Medical Sciences, National Research Council. Edited (1970)

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EDITED BY FRANCIS A. YOUNG / DONALD B. LINDSLEY Early Experience and Visual Information Processing in Perceptual and Reading Disorders Proceedings of a Conference held October 27-30, 1968, at Lake Mohonk, New York, in association with the Committee on Brain Sciences, Division of Medical Sciences, National Research Council DEC1 61970 LIBnARY NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES WASHINGTON, D.C. 1970

The conference was supported by Public Health Service contract PH43-64-44, task order 38, from the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke. Publication of the proceedings was subsidized by the Blaauw Fund of the National Academy of Sciences. ISBN 0-309-01765-3 Available from Printing and Publishing Office National Academy of Sciences 2101 Constitution Avenue Washington, D.C. 20418 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-605763

Foreword Lake Mohonk Mountain House has a history of hosting altruistic meet- ings long before they became so popular. In 1883, the first conference of Friends of the Indians was held there, a conference that later was broadened to include a more general subject: "Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian and Other Dependent Peoples." In 1895, a con- ference on international arbitration met there. The dismal history of these subjects since then testifies that more than motivation and intelli- gence are needed to transform successful conferences into action. More than twenty years ago, it was obvious that, given sufficient funds, scientists and engineers could put courageous men on the moon because these efforts would not be hampered by superstition. Problems of brain and behavior are another matter and in the opinion of many people constitute a most important frontier. Although there have been no comparable dramatic and highly visible breakthroughs in the knowl- edge of the mechanisms of childhood development, there has been a quiet revolution in the knowledge of how the child develops. It is now recognized that from birth to three years is an age of sinister importance. The hope is that similarly objective studies of how development pro- ceeds will be extended (and supplement existing observations of the period) to seven years of age, when the child enters public life in the school situation.

Foreword It has been apparent since 1960 that cognitive development is not dependent on motor accomplishments. It might seem to be only a small step from observation of overt actions in infants three to six months old to careful observations of visual attention to various objects at a few days of age, but the results have been revolutionary in directing atten- tion to the schemata of cognitive development at the earliest age. Instinc- tual behavior in human infants may be considered minimal: the sucking reflex, the crying signal, and perhaps imitative reactions, early body playing, and infantile sexuality belong in this category. The quiet revo- lution of the last decade has taken infancy out of the realm of concern about primary necessities of vegetation and into the sphere of the fully living human being and has shown that cognitive learning and socializa- tion can begin at a very early age. Parents who have the interest and ability to understand its importance have accomplished this transition in child-rearing fairly well on a naturalistic, almost subconscious, level. Those children whose parents are too harried by economic or other problems are not so fortunate. The conference speakers put the problem in bold relief. Although the research studies described emphasize the importance of exteroceptive stimulation of the infant, they by no means derogate the importance of somatosensory and motor functions and loving maternal and paternal care. The capacity of the very young infant to find intellectual pleasure in manipulating a mobile, for example, was documented, but the infant can and often does receive similar "education" from an old tin can if there is the emotional security of parental care and affection. The conference was notable for its scientific objectivity. The goal was to bring people of diverse disciplines together to communicate on the role of early experience in visual information processing. Discussions were confined to the subject with no "practical" implications for belief- system conditioning techniques. The general tone was free of acrimoni- ous arguments, as if each participant knew that the issues were too important to permit personal polemics. Even during the extracurricular hours, when individual differences of opinion were more openly ex- pressed, the arguments, although pointed, were urbane and friendly. There was a remarkable demonstration of the free-inquiry approach to complex problems. The data were the result of hardheaded and disci- plined naturalistic observations gently and skillfully guided by instru- mented measurements and manipulation of the environment. Freud, Watson, Gesell, Piaget, and many other pioneers were present in the vl

Foreword background, obviously inspiring or provoking the investigators, but never dominating the scene. I was impressed by the emphasis on the necessity of integration of two or more sensorimotor facilities. One wonders about the phenomenon of Helen Keller and is led to the speculation that a facility not properly used may have a negative effect on other facilities. This suggestion may answer some of the puzzles presented. Appropriate attention was paid to the handicapped child, but what stood out was the need for greater understanding of "normal" or near- normal developmental problems; studies of "normals" give great insight into the problems of the marginal child. This volume of proceedings is a valuable supplement to the three-year study of the Joint Commission on Child Mental Health, which represents only one of many large-scale at- tacks on the problems of child development now receiving wide public attention, and it lends perspective to the work of the Interdisciplinary Committee on Reading Problems and the National Advisory Committee on Dyslexia and Related Reading Disabilities. More was brought out at the conference than is immediately apparent. If the child from birth to three years of age can gain such emotional and intellectual satisfaction from simple stimulation and coordination of visual, auditory, and somesthetic senses, do we not have a possible means for developing an adult with more adequate coordination of the phylogenetically older and newer parts of the brain? A by-product of the information gained from study of infancy and childhood may be the detection of autistic children at an age when remedial measures may be effective. Likewise, specific learning disabilities may be detected in time to institute effective measures. WADE H. MARSHALL vii

Preface The initial planning for this conference was done by the Committee on Brain Sciences* of the National Research Council. The Committee's mis- sion has been to encourage a truly holistic approach to the study of brain and behavior: to communicate not only across disciplinary borders but also between the different levels—theoretical, basic, and applied—of re- search endeavor. In spite of difficulties inherent in successfully imple- menting this concept, the proposed conference received enthusiastic sponsorship by the Committee, and a planning group was appointed, consisting of Donald B. Lindsley, David Bodian, Eugene Roberts, and Francis A. Young. The participants were drawn from three groups: experimentalists doing basic research in vision, audition, perception, and other cognitive functions; practitioners examining, diagnosing, and treating children with'reading and perceptual disabilities; and educators concerned with the best way to teach children to read. The experimentalists were trained primarily as psychologists, neurophysiologists, and neuroanatomists. 'Members of the Committee at that time were Carl Pfaffmann (Chairman), David Bodian, Victor Denenberg, Edward Evarts, Ralph Gerard, Seymour Kety, Donald Lindsley, Neal Miller, Frank Morrell, Wilfrid Rail (from June 1968), Eugene Roberts, Walter Rosenblith (to June 1968), Francis Schmitt, and Klaus Unna.

Preface The practitioners were ophthalmologists, neurologists, optometrists, and pediatricians. The educators were working in graduate schools of educa- tion and were training future teachers, in addition to carrying out research. The goal of the conference was to integrate basic knowledge of struc- ture and mechanisms of eye and brain with their function and their be- havioral roles in perception, with the focus on underlying factors that may contribute to reading disorders. The speakers were urged not to talk for their colleagues in their own fields, but to emphasize points about which workers in other disciplines should be aware. This volume contains both the prepared manuscripts and the discussions that took place at the conference. Because it was often impossible to avoid the use of specialized terms, a glossary is included. The introduction in- cludes a description of the visual process and other information thought to be useful to readers trained in disciplines peripheral to those of the speakers. This volume is intended for an interdisciplinary, scientific readership of wide range. It is hoped that readers, like the conference participants, may find new concepts and stimulation from this attempt to open avenues of approach to several important problems of childhood. In an effort to reach the widest possible readership, publication of a consecutive account of the conference is being prepared by one of the editors in nontechnical terms with germane background material.* Many factors contributed to the conference and to this publication. Crucial were the financial support of the conference by the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke and the subsidy from the Blaauw Fund of the National Academy of Sciences for publication of the proceedings. We thank the many persons who helped with the con- ference and the publication. *Seeing, Perception, and Reading, by Francis A. Young (to be published).

Contents Introduction—Donald B. Lindsley and Francis A. Young 1 Learning and Not Learning to Read: Current Issues and Trends— Jeanne S. Chall 14 ROLE OF THE VISUAL SYSTEM: OPTICAL AND OCULOMOTOR, RETINAL, AND CENTRAL NEURAL FACTORS Development of Optical Characteristics for Seeing—Francis A. Young 35 Induced Refractive Errors in Human Subjects—De/vvyn G. Schubert 62 Normal and Abnormal Ocular Movements—David G. Cogan and Jerry B. Wurster 70 Eye Movements and Perception—Kenneth R. Gaarder 79 Retinal Contrast Mechanisms—Robert M. Boynton 95 The Pupillary Light Reflex and Binocular Interaction—Mathew Alpem 119 Neural Organization in Vision—Mitchell Glickstein 130 Modulation of Visual Input by Brain-Stem Systems—softer/ W. Doty 143 A Neurologic Approach to Perceptual Problems—Elwin Marg 151 Nonspecific Visual Projections—Pierre Buser 157 Cerebral Dominance in Perception—/?oger W. Speny 167 xt

Contents ATTENTIONAL AND PERCEPTUAL MECHANISMS Receptive-Field Estimation and Perceptual Integration in Human Vision— Richard Jung and Lothar Spillmann 181 Short-Term Memory, Long-Term Memory, and Scanning in the Processing of Visual Information—George Sperling 198 Attention in Perception and Reading—/M/wn Hochberg 219 Visual and Auditory Perception and Language Learning—/ra J. Hirsh 231 EARLY EXPERIENCE AND LEARNING IN VISUAL INFORMATION PROCESSING Effects of Visual Environment on the Retina—/lwxft'« H. Riesen 249 The Effects of Sensory Deprivation on Dendritic Spines in the Visual Cortex of the Mouse: A Mathematical Model of Spine Distribution— F. Valverde and A. Ruiz-Marcos 261 Early Experience in the Development of Visual Coordination— Merton C. Flom 291 Information Processing and Experiential Deprivation: A Biologic Perspective— William A. Mason 302 Continuity in Cognitive Development During the First Year of Ufe— Jerome Kagan 324 Visual Perception and Experience in Infancy: Issues and Approaches— Robert L. Fantz 351 Pattern Perception and Information Seeking in Early Infancy— Lewis P. Lipsitt 382 THE ROLE OF INFORMATION PROCESSING IN PERCEPTUAL AND READING DISABILITIES The Nature of Dyslexia—TTiomas T. S. Ingram 405 Visual Perception in Children with Reading Disabilities— Archie A. Silver and Rosa A. Hagin 445 Implications for Therapy —Richard L. Masland 457 xn

Contents MANAGEMENT OF CHILDREN WITH PERCEPTUAL AND READING DISABILITIES Relationship of Research to Health and Educational Services— H. Burtt Richardson, Jr. 467 Conference Implications for Education—Panel 474 Participants and Other Contributors 489 Glossary 493 Index of Authors Cited 509 Index of Subjects 515 xiii