Encyclopedic Memory: Long-Term Memory Capacity for Knowledge Vocabulary in Middle School

This article is a synthesis of unpublished and published experiments showing that elementary memory scores (words and pictures immediate recall; delayed recall, recognition), which are very sensitive to aging and in pharmacological protocols, have little or no correlation with school achievement. The alternative assumption developed is that school achievement strongly depends on the long-term memory of scholastic knowledge (history, literature, sciences, maths, etc), called encyclopedic memory.A longitudinal study from the grade 6 to the grade 9 of a cohort of eight classes of a French college, was undertaken in order to observe the implication of the encyclopedic vocabulary (i.e. Julius Caesar, Manhattan, Shangaï, Uranus, vector) in school performance. An inventory in the school textbooks gives approximately 6000 encyclopedic words in grade 6, to 24000 in grade 9. The encyclopedic storage capacity was estimated at the end of each year by a multiple-choice questionnaire with random samples of words (800 items; 8 subject subjects). The results show an estimation of 2500 words acquired at the end of grade 6, to 17000 at the end of the grade 9. The correlations are from .61 to .72 between the score of encyclopedic memory and the average school grades

Psychosocial determinants of sustained maternal functional impairment: longitudinal findings from a pregnancy-birth cohort study in rural Pakistan

Function is an important marker of health throughout the life course, however, in low-and-middle-income-countries, little is known about the burden of functional impairment as women transition from pregnancy to the first year post-partum. Leveraging longitudinal data from 960 women participating in the Share Child Cohort in Pakistan, this study sought to (1) characterize functional trajectories over time among women in their perinatal period and (2) assess predictors of chronic poor functioning following childbirth. We used a group-based trajectory modeling approach to examine maternal patterns of function from the third trimester of pregnancy through 12 months post-partum. Three trajectory groups were found: persistently well-functioning (51% of women), poor functioning with recovery (39% of women), and chronically poor functioning (10% of women). When compared to mothers in the highest functioning group, psychosocial characteristics (e.g., depression, stress, and serious life events) were significantly associated with sustained poor functioning one-year following child-birth. Mothers living in nuclear households were more likely to experience chronic poor functioning. Higher education independently predicted maternal function recovery, even when controlling for psychosocial characteristics. Education, above and beyond socio-economic assets, appears to play an important protective role in maternal functional trajectories following childbirth. Public health implications related to maternal function and perinatal mental health are discussed

La mémoire "visuo-spatiale" (composante de la mémoire de travail ou mémoire spécifique?)

In spite of many recent works, this "memory" remains badly defined and the terminology is relatively vague. The aim of this study was, first, to identify and characterize the capacity as well as the specificity of the "visuo-spatial memory", and second to examine its architecture. We found that tere are not two sub-systmes functionally independent, one of visual nature and the other one spatial (Baddeley, 1986), but that there are several specialized constituents such as locations/directions, which are integrated and built, within a visuospatial memory (withou hyphen). In order to locate this memory with regard to the various mnemonic processes involved during the treatment of visuospatial information, we introduced the secondary tasks after the memory task (situation of interference). We found the existende of a process of "refreshment" corresponding to the working memory according to Baddeley's theory. Then, for methodological reasons, we did not introduce the secondary tasks during the memory task (paradigm of competition in the conception of the levels of treatment), but before (technique borrowed from the situations of "masking" according to the perceptive theories). Our data indicates that the visuospatial memory is not activated during the early treatment of perceptives types, and that its hypothetical role during the encoding and during the stocking, as described in the theory of levels of treatment, still has to be clarified.En dépit de beaucoup de travaux récents, cette "mémoire" reste mal définie et la terminologie est relativement confuse. L'objectif de notre travail sera tout d'abord d'identifier et de caractériser la capacité ainsi que la spécificité de la "mémoire visuo-spatiale", puis de s'intéresser à l'architecture du système. Contrairement à la conception de Baddeley (1986) qui supposait deux sous-systèmes fonctionnellement indépendants, l'un de nature visuelle et l'autre spatiale ; nous avons mis en évidence plusieurs composantes spécialisées telles que les localisations/directions, qui seraient intégrées et construites, au sein d'une mémoire visuospatiale (sans trait d'union). Afin de mieux situer cette mémoire par rapport aux différents processus mnésiques impliqués lors du traitement des informations visuospatiales, nous avons introduit les tâches secondaires après l'épreuve de mémorisation (situation d'interférence) et nous avons montré l'existence d'un processus de rafraîchissement correspondant à la mémoire de travail selon la conception de Baddeley. Puis pour des raisons méthodologiques, nous n'avons pas introduit les tâches secondaires pendant (paradigme de concurrence dans la conception des niveaux de traitement), mais avant la tâche de mémorisation (technique empruntée aux situations de "masquage" selon les théories perceptives). Nos données indiquent que la mémoire visuospatiale n'intervient pas lors des traitements précoces de type perceptif et concernant son rôle hypothétique lors de l'encodage et du stockage tel que le conçoit les niveaux de traitement, la question reste en suspend.RENNES2-BU Centrale (352382101) / SudocSudocFranceF

Encyclopedic Memory: Long-Term Memory Capacity for Knowledge Vocabulary in Middle School

This article is a synthesis of unpublished and published experiments showing that elementary memory scores (words and pictures immediate recall; delayed recall, recognition), which are very sensitive to aging and in pharmacological protocols, have little or no correlation with school achievement. The alternative assumption developed is that school achievement strongly depends on the long-term memory of scholastic knowledge (history, literature, sciences, maths, etc), called encyclopedic memory.A longitudinal study from the grade 6 to the grade 9 of a cohort of eight classes of a French college, was undertaken in order to observe the implication of the encyclopedic vocabulary (i.e. Julius Caesar, Manhattan, Shangaï, Uranus, vector) in school performance. An inventory in the school textbooks gives approximately 6000 encyclopedic words in grade 6, to 24000 in grade 9. The encyclopedic storage capacity was estimated at the end of each year by a multiple-choice questionnaire with random samples of words (800 items; 8 subject subjects). The results show an estimation of 2500 words acquired at the end of grade 6, to 17000 at the end of the grade 9. The correlations are from .61 to .72 between the score of encyclopedic memory and the average school grades

La mémoire visuospatiale est-elle tridimensionnelle ?

En dépit de nombreux travaux récents, la mémoire impliquant les tâches visuo-spatiales reste mal définie. Dans les deux expériences présentées, ont été introduites diverses tâches secondaires interférantes après deux tâches principales, de localisation spatiale ou de patterns visuels. Dans l’expérience 1, seule la tâche secondaire «visuelle» crée une interférence et uniquement pour la tâche principale des patterns visuels. Dans l’expérience 2, sont introduites deux tâches dites «visuospatiales» impliquant une intégration du visuel et du spatial. Ces tâches créent une forte interférence (-30 à -40%) aux deux tâches principales. Ces résultats semblent exclure que le «spatial» ait une composante motrice mais conduisent à l’hypothèse d’une mémoire visuospatiale intégrée, différente d’une mémoire visuelle ou imagée. Dans la troisième expérience, la tâche principale consiste à mémoriser une séquence d’emplacements dans un bi-cube. La tâche tridimensionnelle provoque une baisse de 14% par rapport à l’approche en perspective (2D1/2). Les représentations en relief sont proche du 2D1/2, c’est-à-dire de l’espace fabriqué par les indices perceptifs.Lorant-Royer Sonia, Lieury Alain. La mémoire visuospatiale est-elle tridimensionnelle ?. In: Bulletin de psychologie, tome 56 n°465, 2003. pp. 357-365

La fuite, une alternative à l'amotivation en situation de liberté : une étude chez des adultes à l'université

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La fuite, une alternative à l'amotivation en situation de liberté : une étude chez des adultes à l'université

no abstrac

Motivation, Rébellion, Fuite et injustice à l'école

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