Relationships between number and space processing in adults with and without dyscalculia

A large body of evidence indicates clear relationships between number and space processing in healthy and brain-damaged adults, as well as in children. The present paper addressed this issue regarding atypical math development. Adults with a diagnosis of dyscalculia (DYS) during childhood were compared to adults with average or high abilities in mathematics across two bisection tasks. Participants were presented with Arabic number triplets and had to judge either the number magnitude or the spatial location of the middle number relative to the two outer numbers. For the numerical judgment, adults with DYS were slower than both groups of control peers. They were also more strongly affected by the factors related to number magnitude such as the range of the triplets or the distance between the middle number and the real arithmetical mean. By contrast, adults with DYS were as accurate and fast as adults who never experienced math disability when they had to make a spatial judgment. Moreover, number–space congruency affected performance similarly in the three experimental groups. These findings support the hypothesis of a deficit of number magnitude representation in DYS with a relative preservation of some spatial mechanisms in DYS. Results are discussed in terms of direct and indirect number–space interactions.     

Similarity and categorization: from vision to touch

Even though human perceptual development relies on combining multiple modalities, most categorization studies so far have focused on the visual modality. To better understand the mechanisms underlying multisensory categorization, we analyzed visual and haptic perceptual spaces and compared them with human categorization behavior. As stimuli we used a three-dimensional object space of complex, parametrically-defined objects. First, we gathered similarity ratings for all objects and analyzed the perceptual spaces of both modalities using multidimensional scaling analysis. Next, we performed three different categorization tasks which are representative of every-day learning scenarios: in a fully unconstrained task, objects were freely categorized, in a semi-constrained task, exactly three groups had to be created, whereas in a constrained task, participants received three prototype objects and had to assign all other objects accordingly. We found that the haptic modality was on par with the visual modality both in recovering the topology of the physical space and in solving the categorization tasks. We also found that within-category similarity was consistently higher than across-category similarity for all categorization tasks and thus show how perceptual spaces based on similarity can explain visual and haptic object categorization. Our results suggest that both modalities employ similar processes in forming categories of complex objects.     

How verbs can activate things: cross-language activation across word classes

The present study explored whether language-nonselective access in bilinguals occurs across word classes in a sentence context. Dutch–English bilinguals were auditorily presented with English (L2) sentences while looking at a visual world. The sentences contained interlingual homophones from distinct lexical categories (e.g., the English verb spoke, which overlaps phonologically with the Dutch noun for ghost, spook). Eye movement recordings showed that depictions of referents of the Dutch (L1) nouns attracted more visual attention than unrelated distractor pictures in sentences containing homophones. This finding shows that native language objects are activated during second language verb processing despite the structural information provided by the sentence context.     

Impact of instruction on the acquisition of sequence knowledge in a sensorimotor task

We examined whether and to what extent a sequence of finger movements can be learned and transferred to the untrained hand according to the muscle homology depending on the relative salience of response locations and effectors. Participants performed a discrete sequence production task, in which they were asked to learn a sequence of either key locations or of finger movements. Each training block was followed by a transfer block in which responding with the opposite hand was required. Before the last transfer block participants received an unexpected instruction. They had to reproduce the sequence of key locations instead of the sequence of finger movements and conversely, the sequence of finger movements instead of the sequence of key locations. The results do not support the existence of a sequence representation for the order of finger movements irrespective of the hand used.     

A goal-based perspective on eye movements in visual world studies

There is an emerging literature on visual search in natural tasks suggesting that task-relevant goals account for a remarkably high proportion of saccades, including anticipatory eye movements. Moreover, factors such as “visual saliency” that otherwise affect fixations become less important when they are bound to objects that are not relevant to the task at hand. We briefly review this literature and discuss the implications for task-based variants of the visual world paradigm. We argue that the results and their likely interpretation may profoundly affect the “linking hypothesis” between language processing and the location and timing of fixations in task-based visual world studies. We outline a goal-based linking hypothesis and discuss some of the implications for how we conduct visual world studies, including how we interpret and analyze the data. Finally, we outline some avenues of research, including examples of some classes of experiments that might prove fruitful for evaluating the effects of goals in visual world experiments and the viability of a goal-based linking hypothesis.     

Pourquoi être pro-environnemental ? Une approche socionormative des liens entre valeurs et « pro-environnementalisme »

It has often been suggested that environmental attitudes and behaviour are linked to people's values. In the present study, adherence to a pro-environmental norm is expected to be associated with self-transcendence values, whereas clear-sightedness regarding this norm is expected to be associated with self-enhancement values. Amongst a sample of 191 participants, values are measured with Schwartz's Portrait Value Questionnaire (PVQ) and normative adherence and clear-sightedness are measured within the self-presentation paradigm, using a pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour questionnaire. Overall, results corroborate the hypotheses. It is argued that the distinction between normative adherence and clear-sightedness enables alternative interpretations of research exploring the relationship between values and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour.     

La construction sociale de la ressource en eau

This study deals with the way in which users represent water, how they perceive it, how they evaluate it (in terms of problem, in the space, and in the individuals–water relationship) and how they consume it according to the place where they live (Brittany vs. Paris Region; France), their attachment to this place and their level of personal involvement in relation to this resource. One hundred and ten semi-directive questionnaires, from both regions, were analyzed. The results show a social representation of the water based on two conceptions: the water is thought as vital natural resource or of consumption good. The study tends then to show the way in which these conceptions influence the evaluation of water quality and concerned practices.     

Remuneration differences in the emerging economies of China and India

Emerging economies by definition tend to be less dependent on expatriate skills and labour than lower-income countries, yet remuneration (pay plus benefits) differences between expatriate and local workers persist in them to some degree. According to relative deprivation theory, economic development paradoxically elevates the salience of relatively small gaps in remuneration. We therefore expected workers to report injustice and demotivation regarding relative remuneration, despite the closing of remuneration gaps between expatriate and local workers due to the economic development of recent years. To explore that possibility, 482 skilled professionals from a variety of sectors and organizations in two emerging economies, India (n = 233, response rate = 54%) and China (n = 249, response rate = 58%), participated in the research. International salaries were greater than local salaries by a factor of 2.73:1 in India and 1.90:1 in China; these mean ratios bordered on intolerable in the India sample and were largely tolerable among the sample from China. In both countries, differently remunerated workers differed in their justice cognitions and their demotivation, with lowered motivation and fewer justice cognitions in the locally salaried, local workers. These differences were however more statistically significant between people working in India than in China. Insofar as the motivational and justice gaps persisted, the findings support relative deprivation theory. Insofar as the same gaps appear to be sharper in the country with the higher-not lower-mean remuneration differential, they do not. An in-country workshop with local experts who interpreted the findings (in India), and content analysis of the participants' recommendations (in China) jointly recommended linking remuneration to (i) workplace performance instead of (ii) economy-of-origin, to help promote (iii) fairness.     

Sonu Shamdasani interviewed by Ann Casement

Abstract :  Sonu Shamdasani interviewed by Ann Casement about Jung's  The Red Book: Liber Novus  in the course of which they range over issues to do with what drew Shamdasani to Jung; how he came to be involved in editing, translating and publishing  Liber Novus ; why he is so passionate about it; where it stands in relation to Jung's other work; some of the central figures that appear in the book such as  Philemon  and  Izdubar ; what  Liber Novus  might offer training candidates and succeeding generations of Jungians; how it has changed Shamdasani's own impression of Jung and what he hopes this enormous project will achieve; why Jung did not publish it in his own lifetime and whether he was mistaken in not doing so; and what impact the publication of  Liber Novus  will have on Jung's reputation worldwide as well as within the Jungian community.     

Digit ratio (2D:4D) and sensation seeking: New data and meta-analysis

Previously reported associations between low (male-typical) digit ratio (2D:4D), a putative pointer to prenatal testosterone exposure, and high (male-typical) sensation seeking have been inconsistent across studies (alternately present for men, women, either sex, or neither). Addressing this question again in three new studies (N = 198, 188, 1118) produced similarly erratic findings. Meta-analysis of the entire literature (13 studies with nearly 3000 individuals, including unpublished accounts) showed that the current cumulative evidence does not support any negative correlations between 2D:4D and sensation seeking traits. The only significant meta-analytical finding was for right-hand 2D:4D and the experience seeking facet of sensation seeking in both sexes, but this effect accounted for merely 0.4% attributable variance, and moreover was directionally opposite to expectation (i.e., a positive correlation). Discussed are inherent limitations of narrow-scoped approaches (such as via 2D:4D) for elucidating the biological bases of individual difference variables with evidentially intricate neurochemical underpinnings (such as sensation seeking).