Psycholinguistic norms for action photographs in French and their relationships with spoken and written latencies

A set of 142 photographs of actions (taken from Fiez & Tranel, 1997) was standardized in French on name agreement, image agreement, conceptual familiarity, visual complexity, imageability, age of acquisition, and duration of the depicted actions. Objective word frequency measures were provided for the infinitive modal forms of the verbs and for the cumulative frequency of the verbal forms associated with the photographs. Statistics on the variables collected for action items were provided and compared with the statistics on the same variables collected for object items. The relationships between these variables were analyzed, and certain comparisons between the current database and other similar published databases of pictures of actions are reported. Spoken and written naming latencies were also collected for the photographs of actions, and multiple regression analyses revealed that name agreement, image agreement, and age of acquisition are the major determinants of action naming speed. Finally, certain analyses were performed to compare object and action naming times. The norms and the spoken and written naming latencies corresponding to the pictures are available on the Internet (http://www.psy.univ-bpclermont.fr/~pbonin/pbonin-eng.html) and should be of great use to researchers interested in the processing of actions.     

Controlled and automatic uses of memory in depressed patients: effect of retention interval lengths

The present study examines controlled and automatic uses of memory in clinically depressed patients by applying the Process Dissociation Procedure developed by Jacoby (1991) to a stem completion memory task with short and long retention intervals. The results show that the contribution of controlled processes is lower in depressed patients than in controls, especially for the longest retention interval, whereas the contribution of automatic processes is equivalent in both groups and unaffected by the length of the retention interval. These findings are discussed in a cognitive control framework.     

Contextual and serial discriminations: a new learning paradigm to assess simultaneously the effects of acute stress on retrieval of flexible or stable information in mice

The present study was aimed at simultaneously determining on the same subject, the effects of stress on retrieval of flexible (contextual or temporal) or stable (spatial) information. Three behavioral paradigms carried out in a four-hole board were designed as follows: (1) Simple Discrimination (SD), in which mice learned a single discrimination; (2) Contextual and Serial Discriminations (CSD), in which mice learned two successive discriminations on two different internal contexts; (3) Spatial Serial Discriminations (SSD), in which mice learned two successive discriminations on an identical internal context. The stressor (three inescapable electric footshocks) was delivered 5 min before retention, occurring 5 min or 24 h after acquisition. Results showed that this stressor increased plasmatic corticosterone levels and fear reactivity in an elevated-plus-maze, as compared with nonstressed mice. The stressor reversed the normal pattern of retrieval observed in nonstressed controls in the CSD task, this effect being context dependent, as it was not observed in the SSD task. Overall, our study shows that stress affected the retrieval of flexible and old information, but spared the retrieval of stable or recent ones. Therefore, these behavioral paradigms allow us to study simultaneously, on the same animal, the effects of stress on distinct forms of memory retrieval.     

Improved mental rotation by near-sighted subjects

Several studies have shown significant correlations among factors such as sex, age, and hormone levels with performance on mental rotation tasks. To perform spatial rotation also seems to be related to cognitive abilities such as musical skills. The present experiment investigated a possible relationship for enhanced spatial abilities, as observed in near-sighted subjects, with mental rotation performance. 39 near-sighted and 21 normal-sighted subjects were tested on a mental rotation task using two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional objects. Near-sighted subjects displayed fewer errors in possible rotations than normal-sighted subjects. There was no difference in errors between groups in identification of mirror images ("impossible rotations"). Results were interpreted in terms of a relation between enhanced reliance on nonvisual information by near-sighted subjects and improved spatial representation.     

A 3-year longitudinal study of self-concept and classroom behavior of grade 1 retained pupils

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between repeating Grade 1, self-concept scores, and classroom behavior. In Canada, a large number of pupils repeat grades. The literature on repeating a grade suggests that this practice has no benefit on academic achievement or social behavior and practically none on self-concept. Data from a 3-yr. longitudinal study indicate that Grade 1 repetition has no clear relation with self-concept scores and classroom behavior, even when remedial teaching provided during or after the repeated grade is taken into account. It appears classroom behavior problems are related to other factors which existed prior to grade repetition. Furthermore, self-concept tends to be related to achievement rather than grade repetition.     

Gender Differences in Adolescent Depression: Gender-Typed Characteristics or Problem-Solving Skills Deficits?

This study explored gender differences indepressive symptoms during adolescence in relation withgender-typed characteristics, problem-solving abilities,and stressful life events. Participants were 306 white French-speaking adolescents (142 men and164 women) from upper middle-class families enrolled ina high school in the Trois-Rivières area ofQuebec. Participants ranged in age from 14 to 17 years, with a mean age of 15.3 years (SD = .95). Theycompleted the French versions of the Beck DepressionInventory (BDI), the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), theProblem-Solving Inventory (PSI), and the Life Event Questionnaire (LEQ) during a regularclass. Depressed participants distinguished themselvesfrom nondepressed participants on all variables exceptfor expressivity. Instrumentality was negatively correlated with depression for boys and for thetotal sample. Scores on all three subscales of the PSIcorrelated with depression, and with scores on the LEQ,with the exception of In the Last Yearsubscale for boys. A path analysis was conducted usingscores on the BDI as the dependent variable. Subjectiveproblem-solving abilities act as a mediating variablebetween instrumentality and depression. Instrumentality, expressivity, and problem-solving abilitiesexplained a significant portion of the variance of theBDI.     

Conjoining auditory and visual features during high-rate serial presentation: Processing and conjoining two features can be faster than processing one

The time required to conjoin stimulus features in high-rate serial presentation tasks was estimated in auditory and visual modalities. In the visual experiment, targets were defined by color, orientation, or the conjunction of color and orientation features. Responses were fastest in color conditions, intermediate in orientation conditions, and slowest in conjunction conditions. Estimates of feature conjunction time (FCT) were derived on the basis of a model in which features were processed in parallel and then conjoined, permitting FCTs to be estimated from the difference in reaction times between conjunction and the slowest single-feature condition. Visual FCTs averaged 17 msec, but were negative for certain stimuli and subjects. In the auditory experiment, targets were defined by frequency, location, or the conjunction of frequency and location features. Responses were fastest in frequency conditions, but were faster in conjunction than in location conditions, yielding negative FCTs. The results from both experiments suggest that the processing of stimulus features occurs interactively during early stages of feature conjunction.     

On the cognitive processes underlying contextual interference and observational learning

The main goal of the present study was to determine whether observation of an unskilled model learning a timing task enables the observer to develop a cognitive representation of the task similar to the one acquired through physical practice (Adams, 1986; Bandura, 1977; Lee & White, 1990). To reach that goal, we tested whether a contextual interference effect would be obtained in a retention test of subjects who had observed an individual practicing three variations of a timing task under a random or a blocked schedule of practice. Similar patterns of results in an immediate retention test were found following observation and physical practice. This suggests that observation indeed engaged the observers in the same type of cognitive activities as did physical practice. Moreover, a schedule of practice made up of 100% physical practice led to improved learning compared with a schedule of practice made up of 50% observation followed by 50% physical practice. This suggests that learning is enhanced more by numerous implementations of a motor program than by its mere construction or retrieval.     

The effect of spelling-to-sound regularity on naming in French

Summary In two experiments the naming task was used to investigate the effect of spelling-to-sound regularity on performance for French words varying in frequency of usage. In both experiments the results showed a significant effect of regularity on naming latencies. Contrary to what has been found in previous experiments using English stimuli, the regularity effect did not vary as a function of word frequency. However, in both experiments significantly more errors, and specifically regularisation errors, were observed with low-frequency irregular words. Several possible interpretations of this atypical pattern of results are discussed. An additional observation was that the regularity effect, both on naming latencies and on error rates, and independently of frequency of use, was limited to the irregular words in which the idiosyncratic orthographic segment was either in initial or in medial position in the word.