Bettina Bergo: Anxiety – a philosophical history. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021, 514 pp,ISBN: 978-0-19-753971-2

Continental Philosophy Review - This review of Bettina Bergo’s book, Anxiety, draws attention both to the interweaving method of her account and to the substance of its implications. Her...     

La rotation alternante en 3 × 8 et ses effets sur le processus d'inhibition

This experiment is based on the negative priming paradigm by using a Stroop like material (Dalrymple-Alford et Budayr, 1966) to study an inhibitory functional deficit in 3 × 8 alternating shiftworkers. The results revealed a deficit in the inhibitory mechanism when 3 × 8 and 2 × 8 ex 3 × 8 alternating shiftworkers were compared with 2 × 8 alternating shiftworkers. These results make necessary to develop further studies on the effects of the 3 × 8 alternating shiftwork on the information processing system, that focus on attentional processes.     

Child proportional scaling: Is 1/3 = 2/6 = 3/9 = 4/12?

The current experiments examined the role of scale factor in children's proportional reasoning. Experiment 1 used a choice task and Experiment 2 used a production task to examine the abilities of kindergartners through fourth-graders to match equivalent, visually depicted proportional relations. The findings of both experiments show that accuracy decreased as the scaling magnitude between the equivalent proportions increased. In addition, children's errors showed that the cost of scaling proportional relations is symmetrical for problems that involve scaling up and scaling down. These findings indicate that scaling has a cognitive cost that results in decreasing performance with increasing scaling magnitude. These scale factor effects are consistent with children's use of intuitive strategies to solve proportional reasoning problems that may be important in scaffolding more formal mathematical understanding of proportional relations.     

« Mon enfant est-il surdoué ? » Que demande-t-on ?

Is it possible to identify the specific characteristics as well as the scope of the phenomenon of demands concerning giftedness? The author presents and comments a set of data reflecting the activity of a Parisian consultation center over two separate years: 2004 (12% of the demands concern giftedness) and 2006 (11% of the demands concern giftedness). The psychometrical investigations are based on the Wechsler Scales (WISC-III; WISC-IV). The percentage of demands related to giftedness is quite high as compared to other motives. It mainly concerns children who do not show what are called “very superior” intellectual abilities. The development of certain social stereotypes could be an explanation.     

« Docteur,pourrais-je avoir une copie du certificat ? » Étude pluricentrique concernant l’application des décrets du 31 mars 2021 et du 23 novembre 2021

On 31 March 2021, a decree was published in the Official Journal concerning the procedures for the delivery of medical certificates to victims of violence. These victims can now obtain a copy of the certificate drafted by the doctor required by the judicial authorities, particularly as regards medical examiners.PurposeThe aim of our study was to assess the impact of the March 31, 2021 decree on victims’ requests to the medical examiner for a copy of the medical certificate.MethodsThis prospective study was conducted among three forensic services receiving victims in consultation, using a paper questionnaire linked to Medlé data, over a three-month period.ResultsOf the 1,492 consultations conducted during the study period, a copy of the certificate was only given to the victim in 13.1 % of the consultations. It was requested spontaneously by the victim in 15.2 % of cases, most often to exercise his right (46.4 %). These were primarily consultations following an accident, psychological abuse, and assault. This copy was requested spontaneously by less than 3 % of victims of domestic violence. There was some disparity between the three centres regarding the minor victim.ConclusionThis study is a small sample over a short period. The information of the victims, especially of domestic violence, on access to the copy of the medical-legal certificate seems still insufficient, and the principle of surrender, when it can help the victim in his efforts, can also be a source of confusion.     

« Te dire comment je me suis sentie insultée ! » – Instruments, émotions et transformation de l’activité

This article examines the place of emotions in mediated activity. The literature has shown that management tools produce emotions for users. However, this literature mainly analyses users in isolation and without taking into account their work context. Building on the work of Rabardel and 15 interviews with managers, this article shows how the emotions produced by the use of management tools transform the relationship to the activity, the relationship to oneself and the relationship to others and contribute to the transformation of the mediated activity. These results allow to underline the place of emotions in the mediated activity but also to discuss the relevance of the usual distinction between positive and negative emotions.     

Les études des relations sociales précoces : sommes-nous trop « sécure » avec l'attachement ou trop « attaché » à la sécurité ?

During the past thirty years, empirical research has amply demonstrated the central role of early mother-child relations for subsequent social, cognitive and affective development. However, this confirmation of the vital role of primary attachment for later personal development has been accompanied by a relative neglect of the contribution of other social partners to the emerging competence of the young child. A critical review of the attachment literature underscores the need to replace the monotropic model of primary attachment by a more systemic model of development within the polyadic context of the family. For both theoretical and empirical reasons, a social ecological approach to early development permits overcoming the prosocial, positivistic biases of a single dimension, dyadic model of early socialization. The formulation of more systemic, multi-dimensional models of early family relations promises to advance our understanding of the complex adaptive processes that serve as developmental foundations for children’s emerging interpersonal competence.     

Extending the 3 × 2 achievement goal model to the sport domain: The 3 × 2 Achievement Goal Questionnaire for Sport

In the present research, we sought to extend the 3 × 2 achievement goal model recently proffered in the school domain to the sport domain. We did so by conducting two studies focused on the development and initial validation of the 3 × 2 Achievement Goal Questionnaire for Sport (3 × 2 AGQ-S). Study 1 (n = 679), devised items for the questionnaire and demonstrated that data from the questionnaire nicely fit the proposed 3 × 2 model, showed a better fit to the 3 × 2 model than to alternative models, and indicated that each goal variable had good internal consistency. Study 2 again documented the strong psychometric properties of the measure, and additionally linked the goal variables to other constructs central to the achievement goal literature. The establishment of this measure allows extensive study of the 3 × 2 achievement goal model in the sport domain, and promises to yield deeper insights into the nature of achievement motivation in such contexts.     

Manipulating number generation: Loud + long = large?

Humans make numerous choices every day and tend to perceive these choices as free. The present study shows how simple free choices are biased by experiencing unrelated auditory information. In two experiments, participants categorized tones according to their intensity on the dimensions volume and duration on the majority of trials. On some trials, however, they were to randomly generate a number, and we found these choices to be influenced by tone intensity. Particularly, if participants were cued toward volume, loud tones clearly biased participants to generate larger numbers. For tone duration, a similar effect only emerged if spatial information was reinforced by the motor context of the task. The findings extend previous findings relating to the ATOM framework (A Theory of Magnitude) by an explicit focus on auditory magnitude processing. As such, they also constrain ATOM by showing that the connections between different magnitude dimensions vary to a considerable degree.     

Les capacités d'inhibition : une fonction « frontale » ?

It has been strongly suggested that one important function related to frontal lobes is inhibition. However, a review of the literature on classical tests of inhibition (Stroop test, WCST, and AB-AC learning) suggests that this hypothesis is not well established. We further examined this hypothesis using short-term and long-term directed forgetting tasks (Reed, 1970, Zacks et al., 1996), the Stroop test and the Hayling test (Burgess and Shallice, 1996) in 13 patients with focal frontal lesions. The results revealed short-term and long-term memory deficits and a slowing down, but no inhibition deficit compared with control subjects. These results question the relevance of the hypothesis of the frontal lobe as the unique substrate of inhibitory mechanisms. More generally, they address the issue of executive functions: are these sustained by the frontal cortex or by a cortical and subcortical diffuse neural network?