Outils d’évaluation délivrés par Internet

Report (2005)

Sex differences in spatial cognition: A critical test of the "hunter-gatherer" theory.

Scientific Conference (2001, September 08)

The present study tested two predictions of the “hunter-gatherer” theory of sex differences in spatial cognition. According to this theory, men and women have faced different evolutionary pressures on ... [more ▼]

The present study tested two predictions of the “hunter-gatherer” theory of sex differences in spatial cognition. According to this theory, men and women have faced different evolutionary pressures on their spatial capacities (Ridley 1994). On average, males are hence expected to exhibit better navigational capacities than females (Martin 1998), while females can be assumed to exhibit better incidental object location memory capacities than males (Silverman & Eals 1992, Eals & Silverman 1994). Our study directly addressed this alleged pattern of sexual dimorphism in spatial abilities using (1) a spatial navigation task involving the exploration of a computer-based 3D virtual environment developed by Martin (1998); and (2) an exact replication of the object location memory task developed by Eals et al. (1994), involving pseudo-objects in order to reduce contamination by verbal encoding strategies. Results replicated the well-established male advantage in spatial navigation, while showing an unexpected female disadvantage in incidental object location memory. Further research is thus needed to explore the assumed female advantage in object location memory. [less ▲]

Contextual Cueing of Visuo-Spatial Attention: Implicit or Explicit Learning?

Scientific Conference (2001, May 04)

Chun and colleagues (Chun et al. 1998, 1999; Chun, 2000) have recently demonstrated that visuo-spatial attention can be guided by top-down visual knowledge. In a visual search task Ss have indeed be shown ... [more ▼]

Chun and colleagues (Chun et al. 1998, 1999; Chun, 2000) have recently demonstrated that visuo-spatial attention can be guided by top-down visual knowledge. In a visual search task Ss have indeed be shown to efficiently use global context (the spatial layout of distractor items) to detect targets. Visual search RTs are thus faster when Ss respond to targets imbedded in invariant (repeated or learned) visual configurations than in variable (unrepeated) configurations. ‘Contextual cueing effects’ have been observed despite poor explicit recognition performance for the invariant configurations. The present study replicates the contextual cueing effect with more heterogeneously distributed distractor configurations. Furthermore, while explicit recognition scores suggest that Ss can discriminate between invariant and variant visual configurations, no correlation was observed between recognition and search performance. These results will be discussed in the context ongoing controversy about the extent to which learning can be implicit. [less ▲]

Reverse Evaluative Learning: Paradoxical Contamination of Liked/Disliked Stimuli by Neutral Stimuli

Scientific Conference (2000, May 12)

According to De Houwer et al. (1997) the evaluative learning (EL) paradigm deserves the attention of the implicit research community for various reasons, such as its resistance to the general criticism ... [more ▼]

According to De Houwer et al. (1997) the evaluative learning (EL) paradigm deserves the attention of the implicit research community for various reasons, such as its resistance to the general criticism addressed at implicit learning studies on grounds of often failing to meet information and sensitivity criteria, and the strong evidence for EL to be implicit. Nevertheless, EL is controversial because (1) it is unclear what the sufficient and necessary conditions for EL to take place are, and (2) the extent to which EL can take place without awareness of the relevant contingencies is likewise unclear. The present study aimed at conceptually replicating Baeyens et al.'s (e.g., 1988) EL studies to explore the robustness of the EL phenomenon. In a first phase subjects rated the affective value of various faces. During the subsequent acquisition phase, they were shown different contingent pairs of neutral stimuli (NSi) and affective stimuli (ASi), (i.e. liked, disliked or neutral). Next, they were to rate the whole set of faces again, based on their current first impression. Results failed to replicate typical EL findings: Not only did we fail to observe changes in the evaluations of NSi, but ASi, as well as stimuli that had not been presented during the acquisition phase, were evaluated to be more neutral after the acquisition phase than before. We discuss these results in the context of Field et al.'s (1999) alternative accounts of EL phenomena. [less ▲]

Review of a BBS target article Lexical Entries and Rules of Language: A Multidisciplinary Study of German Inflection by Harald Clahsen to appear in BBS (1999) 22 (6)

E-print/Working paper (1999)

Many authors (e.g., Chomsky 1995, Pinker 1984, and Marcus 1998) argue that the architecture of the language faculty contains two separate components: a (structured) lexicon and a computational component ... [more ▼]

Many authors (e.g., Chomsky 1995, Pinker 1984, and Marcus 1998) argue that the architecture of the language faculty contains two separate components: a (structured) lexicon and a computational component. Clahsen presents in a current BBS target article (in press) new empirical evidences in favour of such a dual-mechanism model of language processing based on a multidisciplinary study of German inflection. In the following review, I will summarise and discuss the major points of Clahsen's paper. My focus will be on theoretical, methodological and empirical issues presented and discussed in the paper. An important issue will be the bearing of his empirical findings on the current debate in psycholinguistic modelling. I will as well speculate that at least a part of Clahsen's reasoning seems not to hold in the case of a language closely related to German, namely Luxembourgian. [less ▲]

Les differénces liées au sexe dans les habiletés verbales et visuo-spatiales: Etude des effets de présentation intermodale

Bachelor/master dissertation (1998)

The present study is based on predictions developed in the field of evolutionary psychology concerning the existence of sex differences in verbal and visuo-spatial abilities, namely in navigational ... [more ▼]

The present study is based on predictions developed in the field of evolutionary psychology concerning the existence of sex differences in verbal and visuo-spatial abilities, namely in navigational abilities (MARTIN 1998), in mastery of water-level horizontality (ROBERT 1990), geographic knowledge, spatial memory (EALS & SILVERMAN 1994) and verbal fluencies. We investigated the potential influence of verbal processes on the processing of visuo-spatial information. Cross-modality conditions were thus used, which required verbal processing of visuo-spatial inputs at different levels. The significant results obtained all show a male advantage: in spatial navigation, in mastery of water-level horizontality, in geographic knowledge (names of countries), but also in spatial location memory, as well as in a verbal fluencies task (animal condition), although no such advantages were expected here. No female advantage was found, not even for the "female" task. This clearly restricts the conclusions that could be drawn from our study. Overall, the performances in tasks requiring verbal encoding of spatial information are very similar to those in classical (spatial) conditions, or they are not directly linked to language processing. Thus no clear-cut conclusions can be made about the intervention of verbal processes in navigational behaviour or spatial memory. The verbal fluency task on names of countries yielded a male advantage suggesting a male superiority in rapidly accessing information represented - in a visuo-spatial format - in long-term memory. This result clearly contrasts with Halpern et al.’s (1996) process-oriented model of cognitive sex differences. On the other hand, the spatial precision of geographic representations in males are rather low, as is suggested by the results in a task about relative positions of countries of the American continent. It seems that the quality of spatial discourse depends more on the quality of spatial representations than on verbal abilities. [less ▲]