Route learning and shortcut performance in adults with intellectual disability: a study with virtual environments

The ability to learn routes though a virtual environment (VE) and to make a novel shortcut between two locations was assessed in 18 adults with intellectual disability and 18 adults without intellectual disability matched on chronological age. Participants explored two routes (A ⇔ B and A ⇔ C) until they reached a learning criterion. Then, they were placed at B and were asked to find the shortest way to C (B ⇔ C, five trials). Participants in both groups could learn the routes, but most of the participants with intellectual disability could not find the shortest route between B and C. However, the results also revealed important individual differences within the intellectual disability group, with some participants exhibiting more efficient wayfinding behaviour than others. Individuals with intellectual disability may differ in the kind of spatial knowledge they extract from the environment and/or in the strategy they use to learn routes

Route knowledge and configural knowledge in typical and atypical development: a comparison of sparse and rich environments

Background: Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) and individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) have poor navigation skills, which impact their potential to become independent. Two aspects of navigation were investigated in these groups, using virtual environments (VE): route knowledge (the ability to learn the way from A to B by following a fixed sequence of turns) and configural knowledge (knowledge of the spatial relationships between places within an environment). Methods: Typically developing (TD) children aged 5 to 11 years (N = 93), individuals with DS (N = 29) and individuals with WS (N = 20) were presented with a sparse and a rich VE grid maze. Within each maze, participants were asked to learn a route from A to B and a route from A to C before being asked to find a novel shortcut from B to C. Results: Performance was broadly similar across sparse and rich mazes. The majority of participants were able to learn novel routes, with poorest performance in the DS group, but the ability to find a shortcut, our measure of configural knowledge, was limited for all three groups. That is, 59 % TD participants successfully found a shortcut, compared to 10 % participants with DS and 35 % participants with WS. Differences in the underlying mechanisms associated with route knowledge and configural knowledge and in the developmental trajectories of performance across groups were observed. Only the TD participants walked a shorter distance in the last shortcut trial compared to the first, indicative of increased configural knowledge across trials. The DS group often used an alternative strategy to get from B to C, summing the two taught routes together. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate impaired configural knowledge in DS and in WS, with the strongest deficit in DS. This suggests that these groups rely on a rigid route knowledge based method for navigating and as a result are likely to get lost easily. Route knowledge was also impaired in both DS and WS groups and was related to different underlying processes across all three groups. These are discussed with reference to limitations in attention and/or visuo-spatial processing in the atypical groups

La démarche expérimentale en Psychologie

3e édition225 pagesNational audienceLa démarche expérimentale est fondamentale en psychologie :– La majorité des avancées en psychologie a été acquise par cette méthode. Connaître cette approche est indispensable à la compréhension de l’évolution des concepts en psychologie.– Elle est la seule méthode qui permette d’établir des relations de cause à effet : sa maîtrise est donc nécessaire au contrôle de la validité des faits.– Enfin, elle constitue la structure de la plupart des recherches : mesures d’attitudes, d’opinions, observation des comportements…Ce livre est organisé autour de trois grands axes, qui répondent aux questions suivantes : Comment sont élaborés les théories et les modèles ? Comment suscitent-ils les hypothèses et les recherches ? Comment traduit-on les problématiques en termes de faits et de facteurs mesurables ? Comment organiser le recueil des données pour répondre au mieux aux questions posées ?La démarche expérimentale est la méthode scientifique par excellence, elle permet l’organisation d’une expérience en psychologie et le traitement des résultats. Son enseignement est devenu incontournable pour les études de psychologie.Toujours clair et accessible, ce livre essentiel propose, à chaque étape du raisonnement, des exemples, des encadrés « à retenir », et en fin d’ouvrage des exercices corrigés et commentés.L’ouvrage est préfacé par Françoise Cordier, professeur de psychologie à l’université de Poitiers

Acquisition des connaissances spatiales par la personne présentant une déficience intellectuelle dans les environnements virtuels

Cette étude examine l’apprentissage d’un nouvel environnement par des adultes avec et sans déficience intellectuelle (DI) de même âge chronologique. Suite à l’exploration active d’un environnement virtuel simulant un milieu urbain, nous avons évalué la mémorisation des points de repère, l’apprentissage de routes et la capacité à inférer des trajets nouveaux ou des raccourcis non appris auparavant. Les résultats indiquent que les participants de chaque groupe reconnaissent les points de repère et apprennent les routes à travers cet environnement. Cependant, les participants présentant une déficience intellectuelle infèrent peu de chemins nouveaux. Ainsi, la familiarité avec un environnement favorise l’acquisition des connaissances spatiales chez les deux groupes de participants qui se distinguent en revanche par l’accès aux représentations spatiales complexes.This study examines learning a new environment by adults with and without intellectual disabilities (ID) of the same chronological age. Following the active exploration of a virtual environment simulating an urban environment, we evaluated the memory benchmarks, learning routes and the ability to infer new routes not previously learned or shortcuts. The results indicate that the participants in each group recognize landmarks and learn the routes through this environment. However, participants with intellectual disabilities infer some new paths. Thus, familiarity with an environment promotes the acquisition of space knowledge for the two groups of participants who are striking for access to complex spatial representations

Do individuals with intellectual disability select appropriate objects as landmarks when learning a route?

BACKGROUND: The present study was aimed at investigating the selection of landmarks by individuals with intellectual disability (ID). The hypothesis was that they would be less efficient than individuals without IDs in the selection of landmarks when learning a new route. METHODS: The experiment took place in a natural setting with a group of participants with ID and a group of control participants matched by chronological age. The participants were first guided along a route situated in an unfamiliar district. Then, they had to guide the experimenter along the route while pointing to all the objects and features they found useful for wayfinding. RESULTS: The designated objects were categorised as a function of their landmarks properties. There were significant differences between the two groups for non-permanent landmarks, distant landmarks and non-unique landmarks. The two groups selected landmarks near intersections in the same proportions. However, the individuals with ID selected more non-unique landmarks and less textual signage than the control group at these decision points. CONCLUSION: Individuals with ID seem to be less efficient than individuals without disability in landmark selection. This may limit their wayfinding abilities in their day-to-day travelling. This may also account for their difficulties in obtaining the kind of spatial knowledge which relates to the configural structure of their environment

Facilitation mnésique par stimulation auditive au cours du Sommeil Paradoxal (SP) chez l’Homme

International audienc

Route learning and shortcut performance in adults with intellectual disability: A study with virtual environments

The ability to learn routes though a virtual environment (VE) and to make a novel shortcutbetween two locations was assessed in 18 adults with intellectual disability and 18 adults without intellectual disability matched on chronological age. Participants explored two routes (A,B and A,C) until they reached a learning criterion. Then, they were placed at B and were asked to find the shortest way to C (B, C, five trials). Participants in both groups could learn the routes, but most of the participants with intellectual disability could not find the shortest route between B and C. However, the results also revealed important individual differences within the intellectual disability group, with some participants exhibiting more efficient wayfinding behaviour than others. Individuals with intellectual disability may differ in the kind of spatial knowledge they extract from the environment and/or in the strategy they use to learn routes

REM sleep modifications following a Morse code learning session in humans

International audienceVarious experimental data indicate that rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is involved in learning processes. In animals, any complex task in a learning environment leads to an increase of the consecutive total REM sleep time, especially just before learning completion. In humans, the oculomotor activity during REM sleep seems to constitute an interesting marker of learning performance. In this work, we focus on the qualitative analysis of REM sleep characteristics after a Morse code learning session. Eight male subjects were polygraphically recorded during three consecutive nights. A computer aided teaching session was performed just before bedrest onset of the experimental night. The learning performance (percentage of saving) was checked on awakening. The Morse code learning led to some modifications in REM sleep components, particularly increases of REM sleep time and number of REM episodes. We did not observe any significant modification in the total number of REMs in the experimental night. However, the correlative analysis between learning performance and sleep parameters indicates a superior r for the oculomotor activity than for the tonic components. This is consistent with the information processing hypothesis in which the temporal distribution of REMs reflects the subject's ability to increase the signal-noise ratio from environmental information intake