Orthogonal higher order structure and confirmatory factor analysis of the French Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III)

According to the most widely accepted Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) model of intelligence measurement, each subtest score of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Adults (3rd ed.; WAIS-III) should reflect both 1st- and 2nd-order factors (i.e., 4 or 5 broad abilities and 1 general factor). To disentangle the contribution of each factor, we applied a Schmid-Leiman orthogonalization transformation (SLT) to the standardization data published in the French technical manual for the WAIS-III. Results showed that the general factor accounted for 63% of the common variance and that the specific contributions of the 1st-order factors were weak (4.7%-15.9%). We also addressed this issue by using confirmatory factor analysis. Results indicated that the bifactor model (with 1st-order group and general factors) better fit the data than did the traditional higher order structure. Models based on the CHC framework were also tested. Results indicated that a higher order CHC model showed a better fit than did the classical 4-factor model; however, the WAIS bifactor structure was the most adequate. We recommend that users do not discount the Full Scale IQ when interpreting the index scores of the WAIS-III because the general factor accounts for the bulk of the common variance in the French WAIS-III. The 4 index scores cannot be considered to reflect only broad ability because they include a strong contribution of the general factor.     

Word learning and phonetic processing in preschool-age children

Consonants and vowels have been shown to play different relative roles in different processes, including retrieving known words from pseudowords during adulthood or simultaneously learning two phonetically similar pseudowords during infancy or toddlerhood. The current study explores the extent to which French-speaking 3- to 5-year-olds exhibit a so-called “consonant bias” in a task simulating word acquisition, that is, when learning new words for unfamiliar objects. In Experiment 1, the to-be-learned words differed both by a consonant and a vowel (e.g., /byf/-/duf/), and children needed to choose which of the two objects to associate with a third one whose name differed from both objects by either a consonant or a vowel (e.g., /dyf/). In such a conflict condition, children needed to favor (or neglect) either consonant information or vowel information. The results show that only 3-year-olds preferentially chose the consonant identity, thereby neglecting the vowel change. The older children (and adults) did not exhibit any response bias. In Experiment 2, children needed to pick up one of two objects whose names differed on either consonant information or vowel information. Whereas 3-year-olds performed better with pairs of pseudowords contrasting on consonants, the pattern of asymmetry was reversed in 4-year-olds, and 5-year-olds did not exhibit any significant response bias. Interestingly, girls showed overall better performance and exhibited earlier changes in performance than boys. The changes in consonant/vowel asymmetry in preschoolers are discussed in relation with developments in linguistic (lexical and morphosyntactic) and cognitive processing.     

Do equilibrium constraints modulate postural reaction when viewing imbalance?

Action observation and action execution are tightly coupled on a neurophysiological and a behavioral level, such that visually perceiving an action can contaminate simultaneous and subsequent action execution. More specifically, observing a model in postural disequilibrium was shown to induce an increase in observers' body sway. Here we reciprocally questioned the role of observers' motor system in the contagion process by comparing participants' body sway when watching displays of antero-posterior vs. lateral imbalance. Indeed, during upright standing, biomechanical constraints differ along the antero-posterior (A-P) and medio-lateral (M-L) axes; hence an impact of observers' postural constraints on the contagion response would result in different reactions to both types of stimuli. In response to the displays, we recorded greater area of center of pressure (CoP) displacement when watching forward/backward compared to left/right imbalance. In addition, after normalizing A-P and M-L CoP displacements by a control condition (fixation cross), A-P CoP path length when viewing forward imbalance tended to be higher than M-L CoP path length when viewing imbalance to the left or right. These results indicate that postural contagion is promoted when the display is compatible with observers' motor stabilization strategy which is mainly oriented along the A-P axis. In terms of clinical application, this study brings new indications for adaptation of observational training devices in rehabilitation programs.     

Phonotactic acquisition in healthy preterm infants

Previous work has shown that preterm infants are at higher risk for cognitive/language delays than full‐term infants. Recent studies, focusing on prosody (i.e. rhythm, intonation), have suggested that prosodic perception development in preterms is indexed by maturational rather than postnatal/listening age. However, because prosody is heard in‐utero, and preterms thus lose significant amounts of prenatal prosodic experience, both their maturation level and their prosodic experience (listening age) are shorter than that of full‐terms for the same postnatal age. This confound does not apply to the acquisition of phonetics/phonotactics (i.e. identity and order of consonants/vowels), given that consonant differences in particular are only perceived after birth, which could lead to a different developmental pattern. Accordingly, we explore the possibility that consonant‐based phonotactic perception develops according to listening age. Healthy French‐learning full‐term and preterm infants were tested on the perception of consonant sequences in a behavioral paradigm. The pattern of development for full‐term infants revealed that 7‐month‐olds look equally at labial‐coronal (i.e. /pat/) compared to coronal‐labial sequences (i.e. /tap/), but that 10‐month‐olds prefer the labial‐coronal sequences that are more frequent in the French lexicon. Preterm 10‐month‐olds (having 10 months of phonetic listening experience but 7 months of maturational age) behaved as full‐term 10‐month‐olds. These results establish that preterm developmental timing for consonant‐based phonotactic acquisition is based on listening age (experience with input). This questions the interpretation of previous results on prosodic acquisition in terms of maturational constraints, and raises the possibility that different constraints apply to the acquisition of different phonological subcomponents.     

Discrimination of pitch contours by neonates

With the high-amplitude sucking procedure, newborns were presented with two lists of phonetically varied Japanese words differing in pitch contour. Discrimination of the lists was found, thus indicating that newborns are able to extract pitch contour information at the word level.     

Cognitive effort during note taking

Note taking is a complex activity that requires comprehension and selection of information and written production processes. Here we review the functions, abbreviation procedures, strategies, and working memory constraints of note taking with the aim of improving theoretical and practical understanding of the activity. The time urgency of selecting key points and recording them while comprehending new information at the same time places significant demands on the central executive and other components of working memory. Dual‐ and triple‐task procedures allow the measurement of the momentary cognitive effort or executive attention allocated to note taking. Comparative data show that note taking demands more effort than reading or learning. However, it requires less effort than the creative written composition of an original text. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Suppressing visual feedback in written composition: Effects on processing demands and coordination of the writing processes

The goal of this experiment was to investigate the role of visual feedback during written composition. Effects of suppression of visual feedback were analyzed both on processing demands and on on‐line coordination of low‐level execution processes and of high‐level conceptual and linguistic processes. Writers composed a text and copied it either with or without visual feedback. Processing demands of the writing processes were evaluated with reaction times to secondary auditory probes, which were analyzed according to whether participants were handwriting (in a composing and a copying task) or engaged in high‐level processes (when pausing in a composing task). Suppression of visual feedback increased reaction time interference (secondary reaction time minus baseline reaction time) during handwriting in the copying task and not during pauses in the composing task. This suggests that suppression of visual feedback only affected processing demands of execution processes and not those of high‐level conceptual and linguistic processes. This is confirmed by analysis of the quality of the texts produced by participants, which were little, if at all, affected by the suppression of visual feedback. Results also indicate that the increase in processing demands of execution related to suppression of visual feedback affected on‐line coordination of the writing processes. Indeed, when visual feedback was suppressed, reaction time interferences associated with handwriting were not reliably different in the copying task or the composing task but were significantly different when visual feedback was not suppressed: They were lower in the copying task than in the composition task. When visual feedback was suppressed, writers activated step‐by‐step execution processes and high‐level writing processes, whereas they concurrently activated these writing processes when composing with visual feedback.     

Execution and pauses in writing narratives: processing time, cognitive effort and typing skill

At the behavioural level, the activity of a writer can be described as periods of typing separated by pauses. Although some studies have been concerned with the functions of pauses, few have investigated motor execution periods. Precise estimates of the distribution of writing processes, and their cognitive demands, across periods of typing and pauses are lacking. Furthermore, it is uncertain how typing skill affects these aspects of writing. We addressed these issues, selecting writers of low and high typing skill who performed dictation and composition tasks. The occurrences of writing processes were assessed through directed verbalization, and their cognitive demands were measured through interference in reaction times (IRT). Before writing a narrative, 34 undergraduates learned to categorize examples of introspective thoughts as different types of activities related to writing (planning, translating, or revising). Then, while writing, they responded to random auditory probes, and reported their ongoing activity according to the learned categories. Convergent with previous findings, translating was most often reported, and revising and planning had fewer occurrences. Translating was mostly activated during motor execution, whereas revising and planning were mainly activated during pauses. However, none of the writing processes can be characterized as being typical of pauses, since translating was activated to a similar extent as the other two processes. Regarding cognitive demands, revising is likely to be the most demanding process in narrative writing. Typing skill had an impact on IRTs of motor execution. The demands of execution were greater in the low than in the high typing skill group, but these greater demands did not affect the strategy of writing processes activation. Nevertheless, low typing skill had a detrimental impact on text quality.