Microgenesis, immediate experience and visual processes in reading

The concept of microgenesis refers to the development on a brief present-time scale of a percept, a thought, an object of imagination, or an expression. It defines the occurrence of immediate experience as dynamic unfolding and differentiation in which the ‘germ’ of the final experience is already embodied in the early stages of its development. Immediate experience typically concerns the focal experience of an object that is thematized as a ‘figure’ in the global field of consciousness; this can involve a percept, thought, object of imagination, or expression (verbal and/or gestural). Yet, whatever its modality or content, focal experience is postulated to develop and stabilize through dynamic differentiation and unfolding. Such a microgenetic description of immediate experience substantiates a phenomenological and genetic theory of cognition where any process of perception, thought, expression or imagination is primarily a process of genetic differentiation and development, rather than one of detection (of a stimulus array or information), transformation, and integration (of multiple primitive components) as theories of cognitivist kind have contended. My purpose in this essay is to provide an overview of the main constructs of microgenetic theory, to outline its potential avenues of future development in the field of cognitive science, and to illustrate an application of the theory to research, using visual processes in reading as an example

From deep dyslexia to agrammatic comprehension on silent reading

We report on a case of a French-speaking patient whose performance on reading aloud single words was characteristically deep dyslexic (in spite of preserved ability to identify letters), and whose comprehension on silent sentence reading was agrammatic and strikingly poorer than on oral reading. The first part of the study is mainly informative as regards (i) the relationship between letter identification, semantic paralexias and the ability to read nonwords, (ii) the differential character of silent and oral reading tasks, and (iii) the potential modality-dependent character of the deficits in comprehension encountered. In the second part of the study we examine the patient's sensitivity to verb-noun ambiguity and probe her skills in the comprehension of indexical structures by exploring her ability to cope with number agreement and temporal and prepositional relations. The results indicate the patient's sensitivity to certain dimensions of these linguistic categories, reveal a partly correct basis for certain incorrect responses, and, on the whole, favor a definition of the patient's disorders in terms of a deficit in integrating indexical information in language comprehension. More generally, the present study substantiates a microgenetic approach to neuropsychology, where the pathological behavior due to brain damage is described as an arrest of microgenesis at an early stage of development, so that patient's responses take the form of unfinished "products" which would normally undergo further development

TACIT INTEGRATION AND REFERENTIAL STRUCTURE IN THE LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION OF APHASICS AND NORMALS

Aphasics, brain damaged patients with no language deficit, neurologically intact elderly subjects and university undergraduates matched pictures to sentences having compelling tacit implications (e.g. the sentence The fox grabs the hen strongly invites one to assume that the fox will eat the hen). All groups made, for the same sentences, qualitatively similar referential errors consisting in choosing a tacit implication picture. Two auxiliary experiments using the same target sentences in other interpretive situations permitted ruling out the possibility that these errors were due to the putative intrinsic semantic properties of the sentences, showing that the sentences which were most liable to elicit integrative error varied from task to task. These results are interpreted within the conceptual framework which posits that reliable directions for interpretation are couched by the speaker in the very structure of his utterances (the utterance's referential structure) providing the hearer with means to restructure the relevant personal knowledge integrated into the interpretive process in accordance with the speaker's communicative intent. The determination of the referential structure (RSD) of utterances thus seems critical to their correct or, more precisely, conventional interpretation, and, along with the tacit integration of relevant sources of personal knowledge, constitutes the principal cognitive device enabling us to understand each other. But this device appears to be easily corruptible. It is suggested that many errors made by aphasics in language interpretation are due to a failure to follow all referential instructions, but that qualitatively similar failures also occur in normal subjects, though to a lesser degree. Language interpretation is a fallible process and aphasic errors provide remarkable clues for the understanding of its subtle referential mechanisms

Gestalt bubble and the genesis of space

International audienceLehar (rightly) insists on the volumetric character of our experience of space. He claimsthat three-dimensional space stems from the functional three-dimensional topology of the brain. Buthis “Gestalt Bubble” model of volumetric space bears an intrinsically static structure—a kind oftheater, or “diorama,” bound to the visual modality. We call attention to the ambivalence of Gestaltlegacy and question the status and precise import of Lehar's model and the phenomenology thatmotivates it

Microgenèse du langage et de la perception

Victor Rosenthal, chargé de recherche à l’INSERM Ce séminaire aborde l’actualité scientifique des théories de la Gestalt et des théories de la microgenèse qui l’approfondissent en direction d’une « génétique » des formes et permettent de mieux inscrire dans la construction scientifique les déterminations culturelles, axiologiques et esthétiques. Cette reprise, textes originaux en main, des problématiques gestaltistes et microgénétiques n’a pas pour objectif de faire un simple travail de synth..

Microgenèse des formes sémiotiques : perception, action, expression

Victor Rosenthal, chargé de recherche à l’INSERM Ce cours-séminaire aborde l’actualité scientifique des théories de la Gestalt et des théories de la microgenèse qui l’approfondissent en direction d’une « génétique » des formes sémiotiques et des valeurs, et permettent de mieux inscrire dans la construction scientifique les déterminations culturelles, axiologiques et esthétiques. Cette reprise des problématiques gestaltistes et microgénétiques n’a pas pour objectif de faire un simple travail d..

Microgenèse du langage et de la perception

Victor Rosenthal, chargé de recherche à l’INSERM Ce séminaire aborde l’actualité scientifique des théories de la Gestalt et des théories de la microgenèse qui l’approfondissent en direction d’une « génétique » des formes et permettent de mieux inscrire dans la construction scientifique les déterminations culturelles, axiologiques et esthétiques. Cette reprise, textes originaux en main, des problématiques gestaltistes et microgénétiques n’a pas pour objectif de faire un simple travail de synth..

Open versus closed IV infusion systems: a state based model to predict risk of catheter associated blood stream infections

Objectives - To quantify the change in risk of central line associated blood stream infection (CLABSI) following the introduction of a closed infusion container in intensive care units (ICUs) in two Latin American cities. Design - A state-space model was used to describe the flow of admissions through the ICU. This approach correctly treats infection as a time-dependent covariate. Results - A closed system reduced the risk of CLABSI. The hazard ratios for the closed versus open container were between 0.15 and 0.31 (p valuesConclusions - The data reveal costs are saved and health benefits gained from fewer cases of CLABSI after adoption of a closed infusion system. Information is required on the costs of implementing the closed system widely in these settings

Hospital costs of central line-associated bloodstream infections and cost-effectiveness of closed vs. open infusion containers. The case of Intensive Care Units in Italy

Objectives: The aim was to evaluate direct health care costs of central line-associated bloodstream infections and to calculate the cost-effectiveness ratio of closed fully collapsible plastic intravenous infusion containers vs. open (glass) infusion containers. Methods: A two-year, prospective case-control study was undertaken in four intensive care units in an Italian teaching hospital. Patients with CLABSI (cases) and patients without CLABSI (controls) were matched for admission departments, gender, age, and average severity of illness score. Costs were estimated according to micro-costing approach. In the cost effectiveness analysis, the cost component was assessed as the difference between production costs while effectiveness was measured by CLABSI rate (number of CLABSI per 1000 central line days) associated with the two infusion containers. Results: A total of 43 cases of CLABSI were compared with 97 matched controls. The mean age of cases and controls was 62.1 and 66.6 years, respectively (p = 0.143); 56% of the cases and 57% of the controls were females (p = 0.922). The mean length of stay of cases and controls was 17.41 and 8.55 days, respectively (p < 0.001). Overall, the mean total costs of patients with and without CLABSI were € 18,241 and € 9,087, respectively (p <0.001). On average, the extra cost for drugs was € 843 (p < 0.001), for supplies € 133 (p = 0.116), for lab tests € 171 (p < 0.001), and for specialist visits € 15 (p = 0.019). The mean extra cost for hospital stay (overhead) was € 7,180 (p < 0.001). The closed infusion container was a dominant strategy. It resulted in lower CLABSI rates (3.5 vs. 8.2 CLABSIs per 1000 central line days for closed vs. open infusion container) without any significant difference in total production costs. The higher acquisition cost of the closed infusion container was offset by savings incurred in other phases of production, especially waste management. Conclusions: CLABSI results in considerable and significant increase in utilization of hospital resources. Use of innovative technologies such as closed infusion containers can significantly reduce the incidence of healthcare acquired infection without posing additional burden on hospital budgets

Sens et temps de la Gestalt (Gestalt theory: critical overview and contemporary relevance)

Rather than mere psychological doctrine, Gestalt theory was conceived of as a general theory of form and organization deemed to lay a unified groundwork for several domains of scientific endeavor. Our aim in this article is to assess the legacy of this framework, and examine its relevance for present-day research in cognitive science. We thus survey the intellectual contexts within which Gestalt theory originated and evolved, and review some of its central features: a phenomenological approach to philosophy and science; grounding in the field theory of physics and in the theory of dynamical systems in mathematics; perception viewed as a general structure of cognition; intrinsic interrelatedness of forms and values; unitary approach to perceiving, acting, and expression. We hope this review will allow for a clarification of the status of Gestalt concepts in cognitive and language sciences, both with respect to fields of inquiry wherein they continue to exert substantial influence as well as in regard to fields from which all reference to Gestalt ideas has long since disappeared. We submit that the legacy of Gestalt theory will be most usefully reappraised with respect to its dynamic principles, although this reappraisal would entail a critical examination of the customary Gestalt concepts of time and psychogenesis, as well as a reconsideration of the status of motion and action in form (and/or meaning) constitution