Les yeux grands fermés : littératie, phonologie et résonance adaptative

International audienceIn the present article, I question the claim that a literacy bias is responsible for the fact that major theoreticians underestimated or ignored the role of literacy in spoken language. Instead, I argue that the strongly modular, localist and symbolic information-processing approach to cognition that has dominated psychological science throughout the 20th century has prevented cross-fertilization and the emergence of a unified theory of written and spoken language processing. I show that the recognition of the fundamental role of phonology in reading had suffered from exactly the same “bias”, which had eventually been overcome not by breaking the “literacy glasses” but by shifting theoretical frameworks. I conclude by arguing that a marriage between cognitive science, evolutionary biology and neuroscience is needed more than ever to develop a unified, developmentally, biologically and evolutionary plausible theory of written and spoken language.Dans le présent article, je remets en question l’idée selon laquelle un « biais de littératie » est responsable du fait que les principaux théoriciens ont sous-estimé ou ignoré le rôle de la littératie dans l’étude du langage oral. Je développe l’hypothèse selon laquelle l’approche modulaire, localiste et symbolique du traitement de l’information qui a dominé les sciences psychologiques tout au long du xxe siècle a empêché l’émergence d’une théorie unifiée du traitement du langage écrit et parlé. Je montre que le même « biais » explique pourquoi il fallait des dizaines d’années pour reconnaître le rôle fondamental du traitement phonologique lors de la lecture. Je conclus en affirmant qu’un mariage entre les sciences cognitives, la biologie évolutive et les neurosciences est plus que jamais nécessaire pour développer une théorie unifiée du langage écrit et parlé plausible sur le plan développemental et biologique

Reducing lexical complexity as a tool to increase text accessibility for children with dyslexia

International audienceLexical complexity plays a central role in readability, particularly for dyslexic children and poor readers because of their slow and laborious decoding and word recognition skills. Although some features to aid readability may be common to many languages (e.g., the majority of 'easy' words are of low frequency), we believe that lexical complexity is mainly language-specific. In this paper, we define lexical complexity for French and we present a pilot study on the effects of text simplification in dyslexic children. The participants were asked to read out loud original and manually simplified versions of a standardized French text corpus and to answer comprehension questions after reading each text. The analysis of the results shows that the simplifications performed were beneficial in terms of reading speed and they reduced the number of reading errors (mainly lexical ones) without a loss in comprehension. Although the number of participants in this study was rather small (N=10), the results are promising and contribute to the development of applications in computational linguistics

Impact chains of energy sufficiency policies : a proposal for visualization and possibilities for integration into energy modeling

Impact chains are used in many different fields of research to depict the various impacts of an activity and to visualize the system in which this activity is embedded. Research has not yet conceptualized impact chains specifically for energy sufficiency policies. We develop such a concept based on current evaluation approaches and extend these by adding qualitative elements such as success factors and barriers. Furthermore, we offer two case studies in which we test this concept with the responsible climate action managers. We also describe options for integrating these impact chains into different types of energy models, which are key tools in policy consulting

A Dual-Route Approach to Orthographic Processing

In the present theoretical note we examine how different learning constraints, thought to be involved in optimizing the mapping of print to meaning during reading acquisition, might shape the nature of the orthographic code involved in skilled reading. On the one hand, optimization is hypothesized to involve selecting combinations of letters that are the most informative with respect to word identity (diagnosticity constraint), and on the other hand to involve the detection of letter combinations that correspond to pre-existing sublexical phonological and morphological representations (chunking constraint). These two constraints give rise to two different kinds of prelexical orthographic code, a coarse-grained and a fine-grained code, associated with the two routes of a dual-route architecture. Processing along the coarse-grained route optimizes fast access to semantics by using minimal subsets of letters that maximize information with respect to word identity, while coding for approximate within-word letter position independently of letter contiguity. Processing along the fined-grained route, on the other hand, is sensitive to the precise ordering of letters, as well as to position with respect to word beginnings and endings. This enables the chunking of frequently co-occurring contiguous letter combinations that form relevant units for morpho-orthographic processing (prefixes and suffixes) and for the sublexical translation of print to sound (multi-letter graphemes)

Understanding Dyslexia Through Personalized Large-Scale Computational Models

International audienceLearning to read is foundational for literacy development, yet many children in primary school fail to become efficient readers despite normal intelligence and schooling. This condition, referred to as developmental dyslexia, has been hypothesized to occur because of deficits in vision, attention, auditory and temporal processes, and phonology and language. Here, we used a developmentally plausible computational model of reading acquisition to investigate how the core deficits of dyslexia determined individual learning outcomes for 622 children (388 with dyslexia). We found that individual learning trajectories could be simulated on the basis of three component skills related to orthography, phonology, and vocabulary. In contrast, single-deficit models captured the means but not the distribution of reading scores, and a model with noise added to all representations could not even capture the means. These results show that heterogeneity and individual differences in dyslexia profiles can be simulated only with a personalized computational model that allows for multiple deficits

Quantum transport in HgTe topological insulator nanostructures

In this thesis, a number of transport effects in topological insulator nanostructures are investigated. A novel wet-chemical etching approach enabled the fabrication of high-quality nanostructures from strained HgTe thin films and CdTe/HgTe quantum wells and the investigations of topological boundary states in HgTe-based 2D and 3D topological insulators. Measurements of Hall bars, Aharonov-Bohm rings, antidots superlattices, and nanowires were carried out at dilution refrigerator temperatures. The properties of topological surface states were studied in high-mobility, wet-etched macroscopic Hall bars in large magnetic fields. Distinct Landau levels from bulk holes, topological surface states, and bulk electrons were observed. The high mobilities in wet-etched devices brought coexisting Landau levels from bulk holes and topological surface states to light. In the nanostructures, a number of mesoscopic effects were investigated. The Aharonov-Bohm effect was studied for low and high magnetic fields in a 3D topological insulator ring structure, where the surface states wrap around a torus-shaped insulating bulk. In 2D antidot superlattices in HgTe quantum wells, commensurable oscillations and the interference of quantum spin Hall edge channels was probed. Topological nanowires were probed in in- and out-of-plane magnetic fields, with regard to Aharonov-Bohm conductance oscillations and the quantum Hall effect. Furthermore, the subband-structure of quasi-ballistic topological nanowires was probed via subband-induced oscillations. The topological nature of the surface states could be conclusively proven with the help of a quantitative model. The model is justified by theoretical simulations, which give further insight into the properties of the coherent surface states

Literacy Affects Spoken Language in a Non-Linguistic Task: An ERP Study

It is now commonly accepted that orthographic information influences spoken word recognition in a variety of laboratory tasks (lexical decision, semantic categorization, gender decision). However, it remains a hotly debated issue whether or not orthography would influence normal word perception in passive listening. That is, the argument has been made that orthography might only be activated in laboratory tasks that require lexical or semantic access in some form or another. It is possible that these rather “unnatural” tasks invite participants to use orthographic information in a strategic way to improve task performance. To put the strategy account to rest, we conducted an event-related brain potential (ERP) study, in which participants were asked to detect a 500-ms-long noise burst that appeared on 25% of the trials (Go trials). In the NoGo trials, we presented spoken words that were orthographically consistent or inconsistent. Thus, lexical and/or semantic processing was not required in this task and there was no strategic benefit in computing orthography to perform this task. Nevertheless, despite the non-linguistic nature of the task, we replicated the consistency effect that has been previously reported in lexical decision and semantic tasks (i.e., inconsistent words produce more negative ERPs than consistent words as early as 300 ms after the onset of the spoken word). These results clearly suggest that orthography automatically influences word perception in normal listening even if there is no strategic benefit to do so. The results are explained in terms of orthographic restructuring of phonological representations

Einflussfaktoren der öffentlichen Förderung in Ostdeutschland : eine Auswertung des IAB-Betriebspanels

In diesem Beitrag wird zunächst ein Überblick über die Ausgestaltung des Förderinstrumentariums für ostdeutsche Betriebe im Bereich der betrieblichen Wirtschafts- und betriebsnahen Arbeitsmarktpolitik gegeben. Darauf aufbauend wird die Inanspruchnahme der diskutierten Maßnahmen zwischen 1997 und 2002 untersucht. Ein besonderes Augenmerk wird dabei auf die Rolle des Betriebsrats gelegt. Anschließend wird über die Anwendung multivariater Verfahren analysiert, welche Einflussgrößen dafür verantwortlich sind, dass Betriebe Fördermaßnahmen nutzen. --

Flavoured axions in the tail of Bq_{q} → μ+^{+} μ−^{-} and B → γ∗^{*} form factors

We discuss how LHC di-muon data collected to study B$_{q}$ → μμ can be used to constrain light particles with flavour-violating couplings to b-quarks. Focussing on the case of a flavoured QCD axion, a, we compute the decay rates for B$_{q}$ → μμa and the SM background process Bq → μμγ near the kinematic endpoint. These rates depend on non-perturbative Bq → γ($^{*}$) form factors with on- or off-shell photons. The off-shell form factors — relevant for generic searches for beyond-the-SM particles — are discussed in full generality and computed with QCD sum rules for the first time. This includes an extension to the low-lying resonance region using a multiple subtracted dispersion relation. With these results, we analyse available LHCb data to obtain the sensitivity on B$_{q}$ → μμa at present and future runs. We find that the full LHCb dataset alone will allow to probe axion-coupling scales of the order of 10$^{6}$ GeV for both b → d and b → s transitions. As a spin-off application of the off-shell form factors we further analyse the case of light, Beyond the Standard Model, vectors