Alimentary epigenetics: A developmental psychobiological systems view of the perception of hunger, thirst and satiety

Hunger, thirst and satiety have an enormous influence on cognition, behavior and development, yet we often take for granted that they are simply inborn or innate. Converging data and theory from both comparative and human domains, however, supports the conclusion that the phenomena hunger, thirst and satiety are not innate but rather emerge probabilistically as a function of experience during individual development. The metatheoretical perspective provided by developmental psychobiological systems theory provides a useful framework for organizing and synthesizing findings related to the development of the perception of hunger, thirst and satiety, or alimentary interoception. It is argued that neither developmental psychology nor the psychology of eating and drinking have adequately dealt with the ontogeny of alimentary interoception and that a more serious consideration of the species-typical developmental system of food and fluid intake and the many modifications that have been made therein is likely necessary for a full understanding of both alimentary and emotional development.     

Neural dissociation of phonological and visual attention span disorders in developmental dyslexia: FMRI evidence from two case reports

A dissociation between phonological and visual attention (VA) span disorders has been reported in dyslexic children. This study investigates whether this cognitively-based dissociation has a neurobiological counterpart through the investigation of two cases of developmental dyslexia. LL showed a phonological disorder but preserved VA span whereas FG exhibited the reverse pattern. During a phonological rhyme judgement task, LL showed decreased activation of the left inferior frontal gyrus whereas this region was activated at the level of the controls in FG. Conversely, during a visual categorization task, FG demonstrated decreased activation of the parietal lobules whereas these regions were activated in LL as in the controls. These contrasted patterns of brain activation thus mirror the cognitive disorders’ dissociation. These findings provide the first evidence for an association between distinct brain mechanisms and distinct cognitive deficits in developmental dyslexia, emphasizing the importance of taking into account the heterogeneity of the reading disorder.     

La fonction argumentative des marques de la langue

The present paper reports a set of experimental studies concerning the comprehension of French argumentative operators and connectives. The first part is a presentation of the theoretical framework, the methodological problems and some of the most general results. Experiments were carried out in the perspective of the linguistic theory of argumentation developed by Anscombre and Ducrot. According to this theory, a number of devices in language are mainly defined by their argumentation function, i.e. by the types of discursive sequences and conclusions they involve. Three categories of such devices were examined: (1) operators like “presque” (almost), “à peine” (hardly), “au moins” (at least), etc. which give an argumentative orientation to the statement; (2) co-orientation connectives, like “même” (even), which relate two statements oriented towards the same conclusion; (3) counter-orientation connectives, like the concessive ones (“mais” (but), “quand même” (even so), etc.), which relate two statements oriented towards opposite conclusions. The data shed light on issues such as: What is the nature of the relationship between the informative and argumentative functions of different operators? Is there a hierarchical relation between the argumentative processes of “co-orientation” and “counter-orientation”? What is the role of negation in the processing of argumentative sequences? The second part of the paper focuses specifically on the study of how 8 and 10 year-old children process “counter-oriented” statements. Five concessive connectives were studied: “mais”, “pourtant”, “quand même”, “même si”, “bien que”. The test was composed of two successive completion tasks: in one task the children had to choose the relevant context of complex sentences involving concessive connectives; in the other task they had to choose their relevant conclusion. Main results show a clear evolution in the performance of children between 8 and 10, suggesting that concessive strategies are not completely mastered at the age of 8. Differences among the concessive connectives studied were brought out: the item “quand même” obtained much better results than the other items with 8-year-old subjects; statements with “mais” seemed to be better processed in the conclusion task than in the context task, especially by 10-year-old subjects. These results are compared with other data obtained in some of the numerous studies on the production and comprehension of concessive connectives in various languages, and discussed from the point of view of argumentative theory.     

Categorical and schematic organization and the development of retrieval strategies

This study investigated the effects of schematic and categorical organization on young children's recall. Preschool and kindergarten children recalled either a taxonomic list or a story in one of two presentation conditions: an alternate condition, in which the material was presented, children recalled it and the procedure was repeated, or a successive condition in which the material was presented twice and children recalled it twice. Although preschool children's story recall was well organized, their list recall was poorly organized, and organization did not increase over recall trials in either presentation condition. In contrast, kindergarten children's recall of both the story and the list was well organized, and their recall was better organized on the second recall trial than on the first in both presentation conditions. These results are discussed in terms of the development of retrieval strategies during the preschool years/     

Evaluation of a parent's manual for training enuretic children

An operant method of training enuretic children had previously been evaluated by direct training of the child and parent. A manual describing the method was used by 13 parents in the present study with no professional assistance. Bedwetting was reduced from its pre-treatment level of 68% of the nights to 27% during the first week. 10% during the third month and 7% the sixth month. These results closely approximated those obtained previously with direct training.     

The effect of a commercial game on children's block design scores on the WISC-R IQ test

Two experiments investigated the extent to which 10-year old children's scores on the WISC-R Block Design subtest were affected by prior experience with a specific commercial game that involved blocks and matching patterns. Experiment 1 found that 12 10-year old children who happened to have experience with the particular commercial game scored approximately three scaled score points higher on the WISC-R Block Design subtest than 24 matched children without game experience. In Experiment 2, 24 children who did not have prior experience with this particular commercial game were randomly assigned either to a Game condition (involving two 15-minute sessions with the game) or to a No-Game condition (which involved no further game experience). Children in the Game condition subsequently increased their WISC-R Block Design scores more than children in the No-Game condition. Taken together, the experiments indicate that relatively brief interactions with a commercial game can cause a significant improvement in children's performance on an IQ subtest.     

Commentary on Meehl

The classic article by Meehl (1978) raises fundamental issues regarding the viability of theorizing in the “soft” psychological sciences and the weakness of statistical significance testing in appraising the validity of the field’s theories. These concerns are as valid today as they were a quarter of a century ago. Despite the lack of clear progress that has been made in terms of theory building, I raise several examples from developmental psychopathology research that reveal progress in the field’s conceptual and methodologic rigor, including the testing of genotype by environment interactions, the statistical advances driving longitudinal research, and the use of intervention and prevention trials to address questions of etiology and mechanisms related to psychopathology.     

A study of reaching actions in walking infants

Acquiring motor skills transforms the perceptual and cognitive world of infants and expands their exploratory engagement with objects. This study investigated how reaching is integrated with walking among infant walkers (n = 23, 14.5–15.5 months). In a walk-to-reach paradigm, diverse object retrieval strategies were observed. All infants were willing to use their upper and lower bodies in concert, and the timing of this coordination reflected features of their environment. Infants with an older walking age (months since walking onset) retrieved items more rapidly and exploited their non-reaching hand more effectively during object retrieval than did same-age infants with a younger walking age. This suggests that the actions of the upper- and lower-body are flexibly integrated and that this integration may change across development. Mechanisms that shape sophisticated upper-body use during upright object retrieval are discussed. Infants flexibly integrate emerging motor skills in the service of object retrieval in ways not previously documented.