A Melodic Contour Repeatedly Experienced by Human Near-Term Fetuses Elicits a Profound Cardiac Reaction One Month after Birth

Human hearing develops progressively during the last trimester of gestation. Near-term fetuses can discriminate acoustic features, such as frequencies and spectra, and process complex auditory streams. Fetal and neonatal studies show that they can remember frequently recurring sounds. However, existing data can only show retention intervals up to several days after birth.Here we show that auditory memories can last at least six weeks. Experimental fetuses were given precisely controlled exposure to a descending piano melody twice daily during the 35(th), 36(th), and 37(th) weeks of gestation. Six weeks later we assessed the cardiac responses of 25 exposed infants and 25 naive control infants, while in quiet sleep, to the descending melody and to an ascending control piano melody. The melodies had precisely inverse contours, but similar spectra, identical duration, tempo and rhythm, thus, almost identical amplitude envelopes. All infants displayed a significant heart rate change. In exposed infants, the descending melody evoked a cardiac deceleration that was twice larger than the decelerations elicited by the ascending melody and by both melodies in control infants.Thus, 3-weeks of prenatal exposure to a specific melodic contour affects infants 'auditory processing' or perception, i.e., impacts the autonomic nervous system at least six weeks later, when infants are 1-month old. Our results extend the retention interval over which a prenatally acquired memory of a specific sound stream can be observed from 3-4 days to six weeks. The long-term memory for the descending melody is interpreted in terms of enduring neurophysiological tuning and its significance for the developmental psychobiology of attention and perception, including early speech perception, is discussed

Introduction : Anthony J. DeCasper, pionnier de la cognition prénatale

International audienc

Apprentissage de langages humains par divers Anthropoïdes

Summary This article sums up the experiments on language learning in apes. As of 1977, the linguistic abilities of some twenty chimpanzees and one gorilla have been demonstrated by six american research teams : the Gardners, R. Fouts, H. Terrace and F. Patterson using American Sign Language ; the Premacks and D. M. Rumbaugh with ideographical Systems of communication preserving the universal features of linguistic structure.Résumé Cet article fait le point des travaux sur l'apprentissage de langages humains par des Anthropoïdes. En 1977, les possibilités linguistiques d'une vingtaine de chimpanzés et d'un gorille ont été démontrées par six équipes de recherches américaines : les Gardner, R. Fouts, H. Terrace et F. Patterson avec l'American Sign Language, utilisé par les sourds en Amérique du Nord ; les Premack et D. M. Rumbaugh avec des systèmes de communication idéographique préservant les aspects universels de la structure linguistique.Busnel R.-G., Granier-Deferre Carolyn. Apprentissage de langages humains par divers Anthropoïdes. In: L'année psychologique. 1977 vol. 77, n°2. pp. 551-577

L’étude du comportement est unique pour comprendre la cognition fœtale et néonatale – L’imagerie cérébrale la complète lorsqu’elle s’inspire de validité écologique

International audienceRecent fetal research has explored brain correlates of prenatal sensory and perceptual development using imaging technologies, such as the MEG or fMRI. Such neurophysiological research seeks to map early neural development and will eventually be beneficial for early diagnosis and intervention for developmental disorders. However, the pioneering research by Anthony J. DeCasper and colleagues, in which contingent learning was used to demonstrate fetal perception and early learning, laid the foundation for the aforementioned work by showing clear empirical evidence of fetal perceptual functioning. The behavioral paradigms developed and implemented by DeCasper demonstrated that fetal perception is integrated with memory and learning processes and that sensory experience in utero influences perceptual and integrative functioning both before and after birth. Despite behavioral approaches such as those used by DeCasper and colleagues are unique and self-sufficient in demonstrating that prenatal experience influences brain functioning of the developing human, neural functional studies have started to provide precise data on the early beginnings of fetal perceptual learning not available to classical methods. Running convergent behavioral and imaging studies will provide a more comprehensive and developmentally dynamic understanding of infant perceptual functioning. The complementary aspects of these approaches and the interest of using more ecological stimuli in both of them are discussed.Les recherches récentes sur le développement sensoriel et perceptif du fœtus humain utilisent des techniques d’imagerie cérébrale, comme la Magnétoencéphalographie (MEG) ou la Résonance magnétique nucléaire fonctionnelle (fMRI). Cette approche neurophysiologique de la réactivité cérébrale du fœtus aux stimulations sensorielles représente certainement un progrès majeur pour le diagnostic et le traitement précoce de certains troubles du développement. Toutefois, des approches purement comportementales, comme les apprentissages contingents mis en œuvre par A. DeCasper et ses collègues, apportent les démonstrations les plus robustes du fonctionnement perceptif du fœtus et de ses capacités d’apprentissage. DeCasper a ainsi démontré que la perception fœtale est intégrée aux processus d’apprentissage et de mémoire, et que l’expérience sensorielle prénatale influence non seulement le fonctionnement cognitif in utero, mais aussi les activités perceptives et intégratives d’après la naissance. Bien que les preuves comportementales du fait que l’expérience in utero influence le comportement fœtal et néonatal se suffisent à elle-même, l’adjonction d’approches fondées sur les manifestations neurales commence à apporter une compréhension plus précise des tout débuts du fonctionnement sensoriel et perceptif fœtal non accessibles aux méthodes classiques

La représentation sociale de la pollution de l'environnement

Jodelet François, Carré Jean-Jacques, Evrard Catherine, Granier-Deferre Carolyn, Minot Annick. La représentation sociale de la pollution de l'environnement. In: Bulletin de psychologie, tome 28 n°316, 1975. Psychologie sociale et sciences de l'éducation. pp. 617-638

Mean Heart Rate (HR) ± SD in beats/min and Mean Heart Rate Variability (HRV) (i.e., Mean Standard Deviation) ± SD during the 15 s Prestimulus Period for each of the 4 SubGroups.

<p>Cont.Gr. (Control Group); Exp.Gr. (Experimental Group);</p><p>Exp.M. (Experimental Melody: Descending);</p><p>Cont.M. (Control Melody: Ascending).</p

Mean Heart Rate ± sem, in Z scores, for the 300 Heart Rate values (10/s) during the last 15 s of the Prestimulus Period and the following 15 s Stimulation Period.

<p>Mean Heart Rate ± sem, in Z scores, for the 300 Heart Rate values (10/s) during the last 15 s of the Prestimulus Period and the following 15 s Stimulation Period.</p

Spectrogram (top), envelope (middle) and score (bottom) of the Control Ascending Melody (A) and the Experimental Descending Melody (B).

<p>Spectrogram (top), envelope (middle) and score (bottom) of the Control Ascending Melody (A) and the Experimental Descending Melody (B).</p