The Bank of Standardized Stimuli (BOSS), a New Set of 480 Normative Photos of Objects to Be Used as Visual Stimuli in Cognitive Research

There are currently stimuli with published norms available to study several psychological aspects of language and visual cognitions. Norms represent valuable information that can be used as experimental variables or systematically controlled to limit their potential influence on another experimental manipulation. The present work proposes 480 photo stimuli that have been normalized for name, category, familiarity, visual complexity, object agreement, viewpoint agreement, and manipulability. Stimuli are also available in grayscale, blurred, scrambled, and line-drawn version. This set of objects, the Bank Of Standardized Stimuli (BOSS), was created specifically to meet the needs of scientists in cognition, vision and psycholinguistics who work with photo stimuli

Event related potentials during the visual discrimination of words and pseudowords by children Potenciais evocados cognitivos na discriminação visual entre palavras e pseudopalavras em crianças

Event related potentials (ERPs) in reading were studied in children in a word and pseudoword discriminating task. Seventy-nine children (9 to 11 year old), all with no elements suggesting brain injury and with school performance compatible with their age were studied. The ERP were registered as there were presented, visually, successively and in a random manner, 100 words and 100 pseudowords. For each stimulus the child pressed a key corresponding to the discrimination between word and pseudoword. The register was carried out for the electrodes of the 10-20 system and the mean amplitudes and latency peaks measured and also the amplitude from 200 to 550 milliseconds. The most significant differences between the ERPs occurred in Cz, with greater negativity for the mean of the amplitude between 425 and 550 milliseconds for pseudowords (N400). The N400 was more precocious in 11 year old. The influence of age was thus evident and also the differences in ERPs between words and pseudowords.<br>Foram estudadas 79 crianças (9 a 11 anos) sem elementos sugestivos de comprometimento cerebral e com desempenho escolar compatível com a idade. Os PCL foram registrados enquanto eram apresentados, visualmente, sucessivamente e de modo aleatório, 100 palavras e 100 pseudopalavras. Para cada estímulo a criança acionava uma tecla correspondente à discriminação entre palavra e pseudopalavra. O registro foi realizado para os eletrodos do sistema 10-20 e foram feitas medidas de médias de amplitude e de latências de pico e de amplitude de 200 a 550 milissegundos. Em Cz ocorreram as diferenças mais significativas entre os PCL, com maior negatividade da média de amplitude entre 425 e 550 milissegundos para pseudopalavras (N400). O N400 foi mais precoce nas crianças com 11 anos. Evidenciou-se assim a influência da idade e as diferenças no PCL entre palavras e pseudopalavras