L'AnnÃ©e psychologique - Current Issue

Volume 111 Issue 03

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 23:00:00 GMT

L'Année psychologique, Volume 111 Issue 03

Créée en 1894 par Henry Beaunis et Alfred Binet, L'Année psychologique fut l'une des toutes premières revues au monde consacrée exclusivement à la psychologie scientifique. Elle publie des travaux relevant de différentes sous-disciplines de la psychologie cognitive dont en particulier la psychologie expérimentale, la psychologie du développement, la psychologie sociale, la neuropsychologie, et l'histoire de la psychologie.

La face animale et le visage humain sont-ils équivalents ? Une étude dans le cadre de la théorie de la charge perceptuelle

Research Articles
Pascal Hains, Jacques Baillargeon,
L'Année psychologique, Volume 111 Issue 03 , pp 449-463

Abstract
It has been demonstrated that it is the level of perceptual load that determines whether or not a visual distractor can be ignored during an attentional task (Lavie, 1995). According to Lavie, Ro and Russell (2003), the human face appears to be the only known exception to the perceptual load theory, inasmuch as it is impossible to ignore it when presented as a distractor even under a condition of high perceptual load. On the other hand, a number of scientific evidences indicate that the visual stimulation produced by stimuli representing animals propagates to the same cortical areas as the one produced by human faces, namely the Fusiform Face Area (FFA). Therefore, the aim of the current study was to verify that an animal face would indeed produce the same effect as a human face when used as a distractor in a task of categorization, as revealed by an impossibility to disregard the distractor under a condition of high perceptual load. Results failed to reveal similar effects with the two sets of distractors and added to the evidence that the human face is the only known exception to the perceptual load theory.

Contraintes perceptives et temporelles dans l’exploration du modèle de Ledoux

Research Articles
Martial Mermillod, Catherine Auxiette, Patrick Chambres, Laurie Mondillon, Fabienne Galland, Isabelle Jalenques, Franck Durif,
L'Année psychologique, Volume 111 Issue 03 , pp 465-479

Abstract
The human perceptual system is operating an expedient processing within the early visual system. Low spatial frequency information is processed rapidly through magnocellular layers compared to high spatial frequency information, which are conveyed more slowly by the parvocellular layers. The purpose of the present paper is to assess whether low spatial frequency information elicit better emotional facial expression recognition in a classification task, relative to high spatial frequency and broad spatial frequency visual stimuli. At the behavioural level however, in support of the so-called coarse-to-fine bias (Parker, Lishman, Hughes, 1997 ; Schyns Oliva, 1994, 1997) obtained with non-emotional scenes, this perceptual bias may act in favour of high spatial frequency information, beyond 100 ms of visual presentation. Thus, these results point out some limits of recent studies from psychology and neuroimaging experiments supporting an automatic reflex instantiated by the Ledoux s subcortical pathway beyond 100 ms.

Modéliser les phénomènes de compensation mnésique dans le cadre des niveaux de traitement : application au vieillissement

Research Articles
Jérôme Rodrigues, Hélène Sauzéon, Sabine Langevin, Catriona Raboutet, Bernard N’Kaoua,
L'Année psychologique, Volume 111 Issue 03 , pp 481-507

Abstract
This article deals with memory compensation in the levels-of-processing framework and aging. Precisely, the aim of this study was to determine if a mathematical memory model, namely MINERVA 2, could: 1. simulate the depth-of-processing and elaboration effects, as well as their interaction; 2. take in consideration the memory decline observed in aging; and 3. help to analyse the compensatory phenomenons considering the B s model of compensation (e.g., 1992). First, the usual findings of the field were obtained in an experiment. Thereafter, the experimentation was simulated using MINERVA 2 and the simulation results indicate that the model can correctly simulate and explain the experimental data. These results are discussed referring to the adequacy between the subject and task characteristics described in the B s model of compensation.

Genèse des types mentaux : des notes des tests familiaux d’Alfred Binet à L’étude expérimentale de l’intelligence

Research Articles
Bernard Andrieu,
L'Année psychologique, Volume 111 Issue 03 , pp 509-532

Abstract
Would Alfred Binet have confused observation of his own children with an experimental study of the ideation confusing his family with an objective and neutral methodological troop? The family laboratory, nevertheless so common to Preyer, Darwin and Piaget, would have nothing comparable with the model of the psychological laboratory set up by Wundt. Nevertheless Alfred Binet in the handwritten notes of the text all the experimental devices on the ideation and memory are described in a qualitative but also quantitative approach.

La nature des catégories superordonnées : caractéristiques, effets et explications

Research Articles
J. Frederico Marques,
L'Année psychologique, Volume 111 Issue 03 , pp 533-548

Abstract
The goal of this paper is to examine the hierarchical organization of semantic memory considering the nature of superordinate categories, their characteristics and their associate main effects: the basic-level advantage in healthy individuals and the pathological phenomena of the superordinate advantage and of the superordinate deficit. The first two effects are analyzed in turn, taking into account the models proposed for their explanation and their limitations, and distinguishing Rogers and Patterson (2007) model as the first one to offer a satisfactory explanation for these effects. I then analyze the more recent effect of the superordinate deficit and its s (2007) model regarding the nature of superordinate categories and I show how this revised model can explain all three effects.

Attention spatiale et contrôle saccadique : données comportementales et neurobiologiques en faveur d’une conception motrice du contrôle attentionnel

Research Articles
Antoine Deplancke, Laurent Madelain, Alan Chauvin, Yann Coello,
L'Année psychologique, Volume 111 Issue 03 , pp 549-576

Abstract
The aim of this review is to present empirical and neurobiological evidence in favour of a coupling between spatial attention and saccadic control. Visual exploration involves complex attentional processes in charge for the inhibition of non-relevant parts of the visual field in order to select areas of interest. An overview of the literature emphasizes a similarity between perceptual facilitation effects following the orientation of spatial attention and facilitation effects entailed by the orientation of the eyes. Recent studies about the control of saccade trajectories during attentional manipulations (e.g., distractors) have also provided arguments in favour of a motor conception of attentional control and contributed to unravel the dynamics of the underlying processes.

L’apprentissage de nouvelles informations sémantiques par les patients amnésiques : une revue de la littérature

Research Articles
Nicolas Stefaniak, Thierry Meulemans,
L'Année psychologique, Volume 111 Issue 03 , pp 577-610

Abstract
The ability of amnesic patients to learn new semantic information is a topic of research that has had a renewed interest for about 10 years, in particular following Vargha-Khadems and collaborators (1997) works and the impact of these results both on our understanding of the relations between semantic and episodic memory and, from a clinical point of view, on the way to consider rehabilitation possibilities for these patients. This review aims to present what is known about this topic, by trying to respond to 4 different questions: What are the relations between episodic and semantic memory? Does the study of amnesic patients provide contributive data regarding this debate? Are these patients really able to learn new semantic information and, if so, to what extent? What is the nature of the knowledge that amnesic patients can acquire?