The relation between language and cognition in children aged 3 to 9 : The acquisition of grammatical gender in French

The French language has a grammatical gender system in which all nouns are assigned either a masculine or a feminine gender. Nouns provide two types of gender cues that can potentially guide gender attribution: morphophonological cues carried by endings and semantic cues (natural gender). The first goal of this study was to describe the acquisition of the probabilistic system based on phonological oppositions on word endings by French-speaking children. The second goal was to explore the extent to which this system affects categorization. In the study, 3- to 9-year-olds assigned gender categorization to invented nouns whose endings were typically masculine, typically feminine, or neutral. Two response conditions were used. In the determiner condition, children indicated the gender class by orally providing the determiner un or une marked for gender. In the picture condition, responses were given by pointing to the picture of a Martian-like female or male person that would be best called by each spoken pseudoword. Results indicated that as young as 3 years, children associated the determiner corresponding to the ending bias at greater than chance levels. Ending-consistent performance increased from 3 to 9 years of age. Moreover, from 4 years of age onward, sensitivity to endings aVected categorization. Starting at that age, pictures were selected according to endings at greater than chance levels. This eVect also increased with age. The discussion deals with the mechanisms of language acquisition and the relation between language and cognition

Exposure to androstenes influences processing of emotional words

There is evidence that human-produced androstenes affect attitudinal, emotional, and physiological states in a context-dependent manner, suggesting that they could be involved in modulating social interactions. For instance, androstadienone appears to increase attention specifically to emotional information. Most of the previous work focused on one or two androstenes. Here, we tested whether androstenes affect linguistic processing, using three different androstene compounds. Participants (90 women and 77 men) performed a lexical decision task after being exposed to an androstene or to a control treatment (all compounds were applied on the philtrum). We tested effects on three categories of target words, varying in emotional valence: positive, competitive, and neutral words (e.g., hope, war, and century, respectively). Results show that response times were modulated by androstene treatment and by emotional valence of words. Androstenone, but not androstadienone and androstenol, significantly slowed down the reaction time to words with competitive valence. Moreover, men exposed to androstenol showed a significantly reduced error rate, although men tended to make more errors than women in general. This suggests that these androstenes modulate the processing of emotional words, namely some particular lexical emotional content may become more salient under the effect of androstenes

L’intersubjectivité : le point de vue des neurosciences et de la psychologie cognitive

Cet article se propose d’apporter l’éclairage des sciences cognitives et de la psychologie cognitive sur la question de l’intersubjectivité. La découverte des neurones miroirs chez le singe macaque dans les années 1990 constitue un événement majeur ouvrant de nouvelles perspectives de recherche sur l’intersubjectivité et la cognition sociale chez l’être humain. Les travaux se sont ainsi efforcés d’identifier l’existence de tels systèmes miroirs chez l’être humain et de préciser leur rôle et leur fonctionnement. En prenant appui sur de nombreux résultats exploitant les techniques de neuroimagerie, plusieurs modèles ont été proposés notamment celui de la « simulation incarnée » développé par Gallese dans les années 2000. La simulation incarnée, sous-tendue par les neurones miroirs, est décrite comme relevant d’un ensemble de mécanismes implicites et automatiques de résonance par réactivation des systèmes neuronaux d’un individu à partir de ce qu’il perçoit chez un autre individu. Ce système jouerait un rôle majeur dans la compréhension des actions et des émotions d’autrui et serait également impliqué dans la compréhension du langage. Par ailleurs son fonctionnement serait dépendant de variables individuelles et situationnelles. Cet aspect est illustré ici par deux exemples, l’un pris dans le domaine de la compréhension des émotions et l’autre, celui de la compréhension des textes

Quand l'odeur monte à la tête : Impact des odeurs sur les traitements cognitifs

National audienc

Impact des odeurs sur le fonctionnement cognitif

Lieu du séminaire : Laboratoire d'Etude des Mécanismes Cognitifs - Université Lyon 2absen

Working memory capacity and reading comprehension in children: Constraints on pronoun resolution

International audienc

The morpheme gender effect.

International audienc

The morpheme gender effect.

International audienc