Minimalistic toy robot to analyze a scenery of speaker–listener condition in autism

Atypical neural architecture causes impairment in communication capabilities and reduces the ability of representing the referential statements of other people in children with autism. During a scenery of “speaker–listener” communication, we have analyzed verbal and emotional expressions in neurotypical children (n = 20) and in children with autism (n = 20). The speaker was always a child, and the listener was a human or a minimalistic robot which reacts to speech expression by nodding only. Although both groups performed the task, everything happens as if the robot could allow children with autism to elaborate a multivariate equation encoding and conceptualizing within his/her brain, and externalizing into unconscious emotion (heart rate) and conscious verbal speech (words). Such a behavior would indicate that minimalistic artificial environments such as toy robots could be considered as the root of neuronal organization and reorganization with the potential to improve brain activity.     

Family assessment: developing a formal assessment system in clinical practice

In a previous paper, we reviewed the literature on family assessment and set out some principles that can be derived from previous work. This paper describes the development of a system for family assessment which uses these principles and then gives a brief account of the practical difficulties encountered in applying such a system. (Empirical data on the system will be presented in subsequent papers as they become available.)     

Forward masking in young children: Rocketship psychophysics

A three-alternative forced choice forward masking procedure was embedded in an arcade-style rocketship video game. Human subjects were categorized into five groups; adults and 5-, 6-, 7-, and 8-year-old children. The masker was a 500-msec noise that simulated rocket engines and the 20-msec, 500-Hz sinusoidal signal was achirp from agremlin. The gremlin hid, at random, in one of the three rockets. Subjects responded and interacted with the game by touching the rocket hiding the gremlin. Results revealed that masked thresholds decreased for all groups as a function of the interstimulus interval. The reliability of the psychophysical approach was confirmed and a developmental trend lends support to the hypothesis that auditory processing improves as a function of age. Children’s auditory filters were suggested to be functionally larger than those of adults. Portions of this paper were presented at the Second Annual Convention of the American Psychological Society, June 7–10, 1990, Dallas, Texas.     

Students With Learning Disabilities and Low-Achieving Students: Peer Acceptance,Loneliness, Self-Esteem,and Depression

The present study focuses on the following questions: (a) Are students with learning disabilities (LD) and low-achieving students (LA), when controlling for age and gender, less accepted by peers, do they feel more lonely, do they have lower self-esteem, and do they feel more depressed than NLD and NLA students? (b) Does low achievement per se or does selection into special education programs or special class placement of students with LD affect these students' psychological adjustment? Two analyses were conducted to elucidate these questions. Concerning the first question, the analysis was based on a sample of 1,434 4th-, 7th-, and 9th-grade students drawn from regular school classes. It revealed that students with LD compared with NLD and NLA students were less accepted by peers, had lower self-esteem, and felt more lonely. LA students compared with NLD and NLA students were less accepted by peers, had lower self-esteem, and were more depressed. Concerning the second question, the analysis was based on a subsample of 276 LD and LA students. It revealed that, when controlling for age and gender, and holding achievement in reading, writing, arithmetic, and intelligence constant, LD students compared with LA students were less depressed but were less accepted by peers and felt lonelier. Thus, besides the effects of low academic achievement, to be labeled “a student with LD” may have negative effects primarily on peer acceptance and directly and indirectly on feelings of loneliness, particularly in primary school.

     

French normative data and naming times for action pictures.

The aim of the present study was to provide French normative data for 112 action line drawings. The set of action pictures consisted of 71 drawings taken from Masterson and Druks (1998) and 41 additional drawings. It was standardized on six psycholinguistic variables--that is, name agreement, image agreement, image variability, visual complexity, conceptual familiarity, and age of acquisition (AoA). Naming latencies to the action pictures were collected, and a regression analysis was performed on the naming latencies, with the standardized variables, as well as with word frequency and length, taken as predictors. A reliable influence of AoA, name agreement, and image agreement on the naming latencies was observed. The findings are consistent with previous published studies in other languages. The full set of these norms may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive/.     

Episodic memory deficits slow down the dynamics of cognitive procedural learning in normal ageing

Cognitive procedural learning is characterised by three phases, each involving distinct processes. Considering the implication of episodic memory in the first cognitive stage, the impairment of this memory system might be responsible for a slowing down of the cognitive procedural learning dynamics in the course of ageing. Performances of massed cognitive procedural learning were evaluated in older and younger participants using the Tower of Toronto task. Nonverbal intelligence and psychomotor abilities were used to analyse procedural dynamics, while episodic memory and working memory were assessed to measure their respective contributions to learning strategies. This experiment showed that older participants did not spontaneously invoke episodic memory and presented a slowdown in the cognitive procedural learning associated with a late involvement of working memory. These findings suggest that the slowdown in the cognitive procedural learning may be linked with the implementation of different learning strategies less involving episodic memory in older participants.     

Working memory in children: a time-constrained functioning similar to adults

Within the time-based resource-sharing (TBRS) model, we tested a new conception of the relationships between processing and storage in which the core mechanisms of working memory (WM) are time constrained. However, our previous studies were restricted to adults. The current study aimed at demonstrating that these mechanisms are present and functional before adulthood. For this purpose, we investigated the effect on maintenance of the duration of the attentional capture induced by processing. In two experiments using computer-paced WM span tasks, 10-year-olds were asked to maintain letters while performing spatial location judgments. The duration of this processing was manipulated by varying either the discriminability between target locations or the contrast between targets and background. In both experiments, longer processing times resulted in poorer recall, as we observed previously in adults. These findings suggest that the core mechanisms of WM described by the TBRS model are already settled during childhood.     

An exploration of the moderating effect of trait emotional intelligence on memory and attention in neutral and stressful conditions

Trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) refers to individual differences in the experience, perception, regulation, and utilization of emotions. Research has shown that trait EI moderated subjective and endocrine responses to both natural and laboratory stressors. This study explores, the cognitive processes underlying this effect, under the hypothesis that trait EI moderates the impact of stress on memory and/or attention. Results supported the hypothesis, but solely for the ‘regulation’ EI‐dimension (named self‐control or SC). In neutral conditions, high SC was characterized by an attentional focus to neutral material and a facilitated memory for positive events, whereas low SC was characterized by an attentional focus to emotional material (regardless of valence) and a facilitated memory for negative events. In stressful conditions, high SC individuals engaged attention to emotional material (regardless of valence) and recalled more negative events, while low SC individuals disengaged attention from emotional material and recalled more positive events.     

La protection des données personnelles des patients face à la modernisation de notre système de santé

With the Internet and the artificial intelligence, the collection of personal data is becoming a strategic element for the digital economy. The collection of information touching the health or the body must respect the patients’ rights. The GDPR came into effect on May 25th, 2018. The healthcare professionals who are established in a Member state, must be careful because they can base their exercise on clinical or biological elements of their patients.     

The development of context sensitivity in children's graphic copying strategies

The authors report on a series of 5 experiments in which 462 5- to 10-year-old children and 109 adults were required to copy geometric figures either with no constraints or following prior exposure to primes consisting of different parsings of the figures. The analysis focused on the graphic strategies adopted by the participants to copy the models. Three developmental steps were revealed in the baseline copying condition. Priming experiments demonstrated that the age-developmental step correspondence varied as a function of the type of prime used. However, the impact of priming differed according to age. It was limited at 6 years, whereas its size was noticeable at the other ages. These results are discussed in the light of developmental models that hypothesize a major role either for endogeneous factors in cognitive development or for exogeneous and contextual factors.