Search

International audience; Can memory ensembles recruit neurons in connected brain regions? In this issue of Neuron, Lavi et al. 1 drove the allocation of memory to selected cells in one area, causing their presynaptic partners to become part of a cross-regional ensemble.

International audience; Clinical relevancePeripheral vision is known to be critical for spatial navigation yet, visual cognition, has been the object of few interests in glaucoma; a pathology that affects peripheral vision. BackgroundSpatial memory was assessed with a paradigm developed by Intraub and Richardson (1989) known to induce a robust memory distortion called “boundary extension” in which participants erroneously remember seeing more of a scene than was present in the sensory input.Methods 15 patients with glaucoma and 15 age matched normally sighted controls took part in the experiment. Participants were shown 10 photographs of natural scenes randomly displayed for 0.5s or for 10s. Following each scene the participant was asked to draw it from memory. ResultsOn average, boundary extension was larger, by 12%, for patients than for controls, but the difference was significant for 4 photographs. Patients tended to add more space between the object and the edges than there was between the objects and the border of the photograph. A control experiment in which participants were asked to draw isolated objects without scene context resulted in a significant reduction of the memory distortion in both groups but patients still drew the objects smaller than controls. ConclusionThe results suggest that the reduced field of view in glaucoma has an impact on spatial memory for scenes and on perception of size.

The aim of this study was to explore in a hospital setting the relationships between work motivation and stress among psychologists working in hospitals. The second aim was to identify the respective roles of threat appraisal and challenge appraisal in this population. We expected work stress to have a motivational impact in the workplace, with primary cognitive appraisal (e.g., threat or challenge) playing a crucial role. The study included a large sample of 430 French psychologists recruited in French hospitals with a mean age of 33.68 ± 8.73 years. We assessed perceived work stress, work motivation, and primary cognitive appraisal. Analysis showed two main outcomes. First, perceived stress in the workplace impacts work motivation; specifically, the higher the perceived stress, the less motivation is self-determined. Second, threat cognitive appraisal has a direct and negative motivational impact, but also an indirect impact via perceived stress. However, appraisal of work as a cognitive challenge also directly and positively impacts motivation in the workplace, without indirect effects. Finally, work stress, work motivation and primary cognitive appraisals are significantly related with the workplace. These relationships support complementarity with the Transactional Model of Stress and SDT motivational approach in a theoretical and practical perspective in the workplace.

International audience; Background and purpose: Studies on long-term nonmotor outcomes of subthalamic nucleus stimulation in Parkinson disease (PD) are scarce. This study reports on very long-term non-motor and motor outcomes in one of the largest cohorts of people with advanced PD, treated for >10 years with subthalamic nucleus stimulation. The main outcome was to document the evolution of independence in activities of daily living. The secondary outcomes were to measure the change in quality of life, as well as non-motor and motor outcomes.Methods: Patients were studied preoperatively, at 1 year, and beyond 10 years after subthalamic stimulation with an established protocol including motor, non-motor, and neuropsychological assessments.Results: Eighty-five people with PD were included. Independence scores in the off-medication condition (measured with the Schwab & England Activities of Daily Living Scale) as well as quality of life (measured with the Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire [PDQ]-37) remained improved at longest follow-up compared to preoperatively (respectively, p < 0.001, p = 0.015). Cognitive scores, measured with the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale, significantly worsened compared to before and 1 year after surgery (p < 0.001), without significant change in depression, measured with the Beck Depression Inventory. Motor fluctuations, dyskinesias, and off dystonia remained improved at longest follow-up (p < 0.001), with a significant reduction in dopaminergic treatment (45%, p < 0.001).Conclusions: This study highlights the long-term improvement of subthalamic stimulation on independence and quality of life, despite the progression of disease and the occurrence of levodopa-resistant symptoms.

International audience

International audience; Conversation represents a considerable amount of the daily language usage and plays an important role in language acquisition. In conversation, listeners simultaneously process their interlocutor's turn and prepare their own next turn. As such the turn-taking dynamics heavily relies on prediction. In other words, listeners avail prior knowledge to constrain both speech perception and production. Here we explored the relation between prediction and comprehension while watching two interlocutors having a conversation. We capitalize on gaze switch as a proxy of predictive behaviour to class dialogue turns as more or less well predicted and explore how this affects dialogue comprehension. Moreover, we study the extent to which speech degradation, by increasing the global uncertainty of the context, affects the relation between predictions, brain correlates of prediction errors (N400) and 2 global comprehension. Results show that 1) listeners direct gaze to the current speaker, in particular in challenging conditions, 2) gaze behaviour possibly affects the semantic processing of the upcoming turn (N400), 3) participants with a more efficient gaze predictive behaviour better solve semantic uncertainties at the turn onset, in particular in the most challenging listening condition. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the relation between predictions, neural predictions errors and speech comprehension under challenging conditions.

National audience

National audience; La communication est multimodale par essence. Pour gérer leur environnement social, les individus des espèces sociales échangent des informations sur leurs attributs et statuts sur de multiples modalités sensorielles. Bien que cet aspect soit particulièrement bien étudié chez différents taxons, notamment chez les insectes et les oiseaux, le rôle et les importances relatives des différentes modalités sensorielles dans la communication des primates restent peu ou mal com- pris. C’est d’autant plus le cas en contexte communicatif sexuel, alors que l’afflux d’informations multiples a des conséquences majeures sur le succès reproducteur des individus. En effet, chez les primates et en fonction des espèces, les femelles peuvent émettre sur de multiples modalités, notamment via la vision, l’audition, et l’olfaction, des informations plus ou moins précises sur leur statut reproducteur et leur motivation sexuelle. Notre étude s’intéresse aux rôles conjoints des gonflements sexuels de l’aire anogénitale et des vocalisations des femelles émises pendant les accouplements dans l’indication de l’ovulation. Nous avons suivi un groupe social de mangabeys (Cercocebus torquatus, 1 mâle, 6 femelles) hébergé à la Station Biologique de Paimpont pendant 3 mois (Mai-Août 2022). Nous avons analysé des données physiologiques (prélèvement de fèces et analyses hormonales pour la détermination des ovulations), comportementales (comportements socio-sexuels entre et au sein des sexes), des photographies calibrées des gonflements (varia- tions fines de taille), des enregistrements des cris de copulations (caractéristiques acoustiques fréquentielles et temporelles) pour capturer les variations intra-cycles (14 cycles déterminés hormonalement pour 5 femelles). Nos résultats montrent que chez le mangabey, les gonflements sexuels et les cris de copulations covarient avec la probabilité d’ovulation : la taille des gonflements, l’occurrence des cris de copulation ainsi que leurs paramètres acoustiques fréquentiels sont maximaux au moment de l’ovulation. Ces informations semblent être accessibles au mâle puisque les copulations étaient restreintes à la période la plus fertile du cycle. Conjointement, ces informations complémentaires et disponibles à longue distance pourraient médier les compéti- tions inter-sexuelles (motivation sexuelle des mâles) et intra-sexuelles (compétition pour l’accès aux femelles fertiles, et estimation de la fertilité entre femelles rivales) et donc les stratégies de reproduction des deux sexes

Theory of Mind (ToM) is a critical component of intelligence, yet accurately measuring it continues to be a subject of debate. Prior research has attempted to apply human ToM assessments to natural language processing models using either human-created standardized tests or rule-based templates. However, these methods primarily focus on simplistic reasoning and require further validation. In this study, we utilize dynamic epistemic logic, which has established overlaps with ToM, to generate more intricate problems. We also introduce novel verbalization techniques to express these problems using natural language. Our findings indicate that certain language model scaling (from 70M to 6B and 350M to 174B) does not consistently yield results better than random chance. While GPT-4 demonstrates improved epistemic reasoning capabilities, there is still room for enhancement. Our code and datasets are publicly available https://github.com/antoinelrnld/modlog https://huggingface.co/datasets/sileod/mindgames

International audience

International audience; Introduction Early exposure to a rich linguistic environment is essential as soon as the diagnosis of deafness is made. Cochlear implantation (CI) allows children to have access to speech perception in their early years. However, it provides only partial acoustic information, which can lead to difficulties in perceiving some phonetic contrasts. This study investigates the contribution of two spoken speech and language rehabilitation approaches to speech perception in children with CI using a lexicality judgment task from the EULALIES battery. Auditory Verbal Therapy (AVT) is an early intervention program that relies on auditory learning to enhance hearing skills in deaf children with CI. French Cued Speech, also called Cued French (CF), is a multisensory communication tool that disambiguates lip reading by adding a manual gesture. Methods In this study, 124 children aged from 60 to 140 months were included: 90 children with typical hearing skills (TH), 9 deaf children with CI who had participated in an AVT program (AVT), 6 deaf children with CI with high Cued French reading skills (CF+), and 19 deaf children with CI with low Cued French reading skills (CF-). Speech perception was assessed using sensitivity ( d’ ) using both the hit and false alarm rates, as defined in signal-detection theory. Results The results show that children with cochlear implants from the CF- and CF+ groups have significantly lower performance compared to children with typical hearing (TH) ( p < 0.001 and p = 0.033, respectively). Additionally, children in the AVT group also tended to have lower scores compared to TH children ( p = 0.07). However, exposition to AVT and CF seems to improve speech perception. The scores of the children in the AVT and CF+ groups are closer to typical scores than those of children in the CF- group, as evidenced by a distance measure. Discussion Overall, the findings of this study provide evidence for the effectiveness of these two speech and language rehabilitation approaches, and highlight the importance of using a specific approach in addition to a cochlear implant to improve speech perception in children with cochlear implants.

Despite general agreement that laughter is crucial in social in- teractions and cognitive development, there is surprisingly lit- tle work looking at its use through childhood. Here we inves- tigate laughter in middle childhood, using a corpus of online calls between child and parent and between the (same parent) and another adult. We focus on laughter mimicry, i.e., laugh- ter shortly following laughter from the partner, and we com- pare mimicking and non-mimicking laughter in terms of dis- tribution and acoustic properties using spectrotemporal modu- lation measures. Our results show, despite similar frequencies in laughter production, different laughter mimicry patterns be- tween Parent-Child and Parent-Adult interactions. Overall, in comparison with previous work in infants and toddlers, our results show laughter mimicry is more balanced between par- ents and school-age children. At the acoustic level, we observe differences between mimicking and non-mimicking laughter in children, but not in adults. Moreover, we observe signifi- cant differences in laughter acoustics in parents depending on whether they interact with children or adults, which highlights a strong interlocutor effect on laughter mimicry.

International audience; Understanding how children process ambiguous words is a challenge because sense disambiguation depends on sentence context bottom-up and top-down aspects. Here, we seek insight into this phenomenon by investigating how such a competence might arise in large distributional learners (Transformers) that purport to acquire sense representations from language input in a largely unsupervised fashion. We investigated how sense disambiguation might be achieved using model representations derived from naturalistic child-directed speech. We tested a large pool of Transformer models, varying in their pretraining input size/nature as well as the size of their parameter space. Tested across three behavioral experiments from the developmental literature, we found that these models capture some essential properties of child sense disambiguation, although most still struggle in the more challenging tasks with contrastive cues. We discuss implications for both theories of word learning and for using Transformers to capture child language processing.

International audience; Introduction: Stroke leaves around 40% of surviving patients dependent in their activities, notably due to severe motor disabilities[1]. BCIs have been shown to favour motor recovery after stroke [2], but this efficiency has not reached yet the level required to achieve a clinical usage. We hypothesise that improving BCI acceptability, notably by personalising BCI-based rehabilitation procedures to each patient, will reduce anxiety and favour engagement in the rehabilitation process, thereby increasing the efficiency of those procedures. To test this hypothesis, we need to understand how to adapt BCI procedures to each patient depending on their profile. Thus, we constructed a model of BCI acceptability based on the literature [3], adapted it in a questionnaire, and distributed the latter to post-stroke patients (N=140). Methods: The questionnaire consisted of i) 3 target factors used as a proxy of BCI acceptability, namely the perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEoU) intention to use (IU) and ii) 23 explanatory factors that could influence acceptability. First, k-mean clustering analyses were performed to identify different profiles of patients. Then, for each cluster, elastic net regressions were used to identify the explanatory factors that predicted PU, PEoU and IU the best, i.e., to identify the factors that are the most important to personalise for each patient. Results: Five clusters (c1 to c5) were identified. The regression analyses indicated that the following factors had to be considered: (c1 & c5) "scientific relevance" & "ease of learning"; (c2) "benefits/risks ratio", "ease of learning", "visual aesthetic" & "result demonstrability"; (c3) "scientific relevance" & "benefits/risks ratio";(c4) none. Perspectives: We will use those results in a clinical study to personalise the BCI procedures to each patient. We expect lower anxiety and better motivation, acceptability and motor recovery with this personalised setting than with a standard one. Sources [1] Inserm, 2019 [2] Cervera, María A., et al. "Brain-computer interfaces for post-stroke motor rehabilitation: a meta-analysis."

International audience; Motor imagery (MI) is widely used in sports, in particular for motor learning and anxiety management [1]. Indeed, athletes consistently report using MI for rehearsing technique, maintaining arousal or enhancing self-confidence [2]. However, optimal gains are limited by the fact that they receive no feedback and cannot assess their performance. This can have detrimental effects on their motivation to diligently practice MI. Therefore, using Neurofeedback (NF) appears to be an adapted solution, allowing athletes to know if they are correctly performing the task. This addition also makes it possible to objectify performance and quantify progression throughout the sessions. In fact, three recent meta-analysis testify that NF improves the ability to self-regulate brain activity and sport performance [3, 4, 5]. The number of papers using MI-NF protocols has increased in the past few years. However, their efficiency has been shown to depend on various factors such as expertise in the imagined task [6], personality traits [7], MI ability [8] or NF acceptability [9]. Some of these factors can be assessed using validated questionnaires [10,11,12] but items are generally focused on questioning the current use of MI or thoughts on NF. An issue, as we know that practice can sometimes differ from real needs and expectations. To our knowledge, no previous work has investigated sports field actors’ preferences with the aim of designing specific NF tools, perfectly fitted to their profile, goals and expectations. Therefore, based on pre-existing questionnaires, we will build and broadcast an online questionnaire for athletes where personality, MI use, NF acceptability and NF preferences will be assessed. This method will enable us to personalise MI-NF trainings to fit each athlete’s needs. A longitudinal study will then require that athletes follow a personalised procedure to investigate how it impacts their MI and NF performances as well as their acceptability levels.[1] Guillot, A., & Collet, C. (2008). Construction of the Motor Imagery Integrative Model in Sport : A review and theoretical investigation of motor imagery use. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 1.[2] Munroe, K. J., Giacobbi Jr., P. R., Hall, C., & Weinberg, R. (2000). The Four Ws of Imagery Use : Where, When, Why, and What. Sport Psychologist, 14(2), 119.[3] Mirifar, A., Beckmann, J., & Ehrlenspiel, F. (2017). Neurofeedback as supplementary training for optimizing athletes’ performance: A systematic review with implications for future research. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 75, 419 432. [4] Xiang, M.-Q., Hou, X.-H., Liao, B.-G., Liao, J.-W., & Hu, M. (2018). The effect of neurofeedback training for sport performance in athletes: A meta-analysis. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 36, 114 122.[5] Gong, A., Gu, F., Nan, W., Qu, Y., Jiang, C., & Fu, Y. (2021). A Review of Neurofeedback Training for Improving Sport Performance From the Perspective of User Experience. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 15.[6] Kraeutner, S. N., McWhinney, S. R., Solomon, J. P., Dithurbide, L., & Boe, S. G. (2018). Experience modulates motor imagery-based brain activity. European Journal of Neuroscience, 47(10), 1221 1229.[7] Jeunet, C., N’Kaoua, B., Subramanian, S., Hachet, M., & Lotte, F. (2015). Predicting Mental Imagery-Based BCI Performance from Personality, Cognitive Profile and Neurophysiological Patterns. PLOS ONE, 10(12), e0143962.[8] Guillot, A., Collet, C., Nguyen, V. A., Malouin, F., Richards, C., & Doyon, J. (2008). Functional neuroanatomical networks associated with expertise in motor imagery. NeuroImage. [9] Morone, G., Pisotta, I., Pichiorri, F., Kleih, S., Paolucci, S., Molinari, M., Cincotti, F., Kübler, A., & Mattia, D. (2015). Proof of principle of a brain-computer interface approach to support poststroke arm rehabilitation in hospitalized patients: Design, acceptability, and usability. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 96(3 Suppl), S71-78. [10] Hall, C. R., Rodgers, W. M., & Barr, K. A. (1990). The Use of Imagery by Athletes in Selected Sports. The Sport Psychologist, 4(1), 1 10.[11] Plaisant, O., Courtois, R., Réveillère, C., Mendelsohn, G. A., & John, O. P. (2010). Validation par analyse factorielle du Big Five Inventory français (BFI-Fr). Analyse convergente avec le NEO-PI-R. Annales Médico-psychologiques, revue psychiatrique, 168(2), 97 106. [12] Grevet, E., Forge, K., Tadiello, S., Izac, M., Amadieu, F., Brunel, L., Pillette, L., Py, J., Gasq, D., & Jeunet-Kelway, C. (2023). Modeling the acceptability of BCIs for motor rehabilitation after stroke: A large scale study on the general public. Frontiers in Neuroergonomics, 3.

International audience

National audience; Une recherche centrée sur la collecte de l’expérience vécue des soignants lorsqu’ils rencontrent un patient pour la première fois, met en lumière ce qui se joue en deçà et au-delà de la compétence technique du professionnel et de la recherche d’un diagnostic, c’est-à-dire ce qui fait la chair de la rencontre.

International audience; Purpose: In adults with dyslexia (DYS), the persistent influence of phonological deficits on spoken language processing has mainly been examined in either perceptual tasks or those tapping complex cognitive operations. Much less attention is devoted to spoken word recognition per se. Our study aimed to fill this gap.Method: Adults with and without dyslexia (for both groups: N = 30, mean age = 21 years, 50% female, 100% white European) performed an auditory lexical decision task. Performance and ERP were recorded.Results: Reaction times showed a lexicality effect in both groups although they differed in ERP responses to stimulus lexicality. Skilled readers showed the typical amplitude enhancement for pseudowords compared to words in a late phase of N400 (414-581msec) whereas DYS showed the opposite pattern in an earlier phase of N400 (246-413msec). Both groups showed a stronger negativity during pseudowords processing in the late postlexical stage (582-800msec).Conclusions: ERP data showed subtle differences between the two populations during the lexical stage of word recognition despite their comparable behavioral outcomes. We hypothesized that a stronger reliance on intact semantic knowledge might contribute to the general enhanced and sustained ERP responses to words in DYS across different phases of lexical processing, although confirmation is needed.

International audience

International audience; A massive diet switch has occurred in the occidental world since the second half of the 20 th century, with a dramatic increase in refined carbohydrate consumption generating numerous deleterious health effects. Physiological mechanisms associated with refined carbohydrate consumption, such as hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance, may impact cognition in healthy people before overt obesity, metabolic disease onset or dementia. To explore this possibility, the relationship between cognitive performance and chronic refined carbohydrate consumption was studied in healthy young adults (N = 95). Evaluation of chronic refined consumption was based on the glycemic load (a proxy of glycemic and insulinemic responses) of three mealtimes at higher glycemic risk: breakfast, afternoon snacking and between-meal snacking. Immediate consumption of refined carbohydrates was experimentally controlled. High chronic between-meal glycemic load is associated to a decrease of cognitive performance for men and women in the presence of several control variables, including energy intake. The different physiological ecologies of the three meals and the interpretation of the results in terms of adaptation or maladaptation to the modern dietary environment are discussed.

International audience; Fibromyalgia can be considered to be a model of chronic pain resulting from dysregulation of pain processing. From a psychological point of view, it is possible to consider transdiagnostic processes that would participate in both the dysregulation of pain and associated emotions.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to test the links that exist between the tendency to Repetitive Negative Thinking (RNT) and the anxious-depressive manifestations in fibromyalgia. More specifically, we wanted to test a double mediation model where RNT would mediate the link between pain and depression/anxiety via catastrophizing.MethodEighty-two patients with fibromyalgia completed a series of questionnaires evaluating their level of depression, anxiety, disability related to pain, catastrophizing as well as various measures of Repetitive Thoughts.ResultsThe results showed strong correlations between RNT levels, pain, and anxious-depressive manifestations in this population. Moreover, the links between pain and depression/anxiety were mediated by catastrophizing and RNT in serial.ConclusionResults support the interest of studying RNT as a transdiagnostic process in fibromyalgia pain. Considering RNT in fibromyalgia allows a better understanding of tthe links that exist between pain and emotional disorders in this population and thus to better understand the psychopathological comorbidity of fibromyalgia.; La fibromyalgie peut être considérée comme un modèle de douleur chronique résultant d’une dérégulation du traitement de la douleur. D’un point de vue psychologique, il est possible d’envisager des processus transdiagnostiques qui participeraient à la fois au dérèglement de la douleur et des émotions associées.ObjectifLe but de cette étude était de tester les liens qui existent entre la tendance aux pensées répétitives négatives (PRN) et les manifestations anxio-dépressives dans la fibromyalgie. Plus précisément, nous avons voulu tester un modèle de double médiation où les PRN médiatisent le lien entre douleur et dépression/anxiété via le catastrophisme.MéthodeQuatre ving deux patients atteints de fibromyalgie ont rempli une série de questionnaires évaluant leur niveau de dépression, d’anxiété, d’incapacité liée à la douleur, de catastrophisme ainsi que diverses mesures de pensées répétitives.RésultatsLes résultats montrent de fortes corrélations entre les niveaux de PRN, la douleur et les manifestations anxio-dépressives dans cette population. De plus, les liens entre douleur et dépression/anxiété sont médiatisés par le catastrophisme et les PRN en série.ConclusionLes résultats soutiennent l’intérêt d’étudier les PRN comme processus transdiagnostique dans la douleur fibromyalgique. Considérer les pensées répétitives dans la fibromyalgie permet de mieux comprendre les liens qui existent entre douleur et troubles émotionnels dans cette population et ainsi de mieux comprendre la comorbidité psychopathologique de la fibromyalgie.

This study aimed at demonstrating the intentional modulation of bimanual coordination dynamics at transition frequency and determining whether it is associated with perceptual and/or motor inhibition capacities. Healthy adults (N = 29) performed in a random order: i) bimanual anti-phase (AP) movements at the maximal individual transition frequency, with the instruction to either let go, or intentionally maintain the initial movement pattern and oppose to the spontaneous transition to in-phase (IP) movements, and ii) The Motor and Perceptual Inhibition Test, giving separate scores for perceptual and motor inhibition. Results showed that in the intentional condition participants were able to delay (more movement cycles before the transition) and suppress (more trials without transition) the spontaneous transition from AP to IP. A statistically significant, though weak, correlation was found between motor performance and perceptual inhibition scores. We interpreted our findings as an indicator of the presence of an inhibitory mechanism underlying intentional dynamics that is partially associated to perceptual inhibition in healthy adults. This could have implications in populations with compromised inhibitory capacities, which might entail motor repercussions, and suggests the possibility of using bimanual coordination as means to stimulate both cognitive and motor capacities.

International audience; During reading, the brain is confronted with many relevant objects at once. But does lexical processing occur for multiple words simultaneously? Cognitive science has yet to answer this prominent question. Recently it has been argued that the issue warrants supplementing the field's traditional toolbox (response times, eye-tracking) with neuroscientific techniques (EEG, fMRI). Indeed, according to the OB1-reader model, upcoming words need not impact oculomotor behavior per se, but parallel processing of these words must nonetheless be reflected in neural activity. Here we combined eye-tracking with EEG, timelocking the neural window of interest to the fixation on target words in sentence reading. During these fixations, we manipulated the identity of the subsequent word so that it posed either a syntactically legal or illegal continuation of the sentence. In line with previous research, oculomotor measures were unaffected. Yet, syntax impacted brain potentials as early as 100 ms after the target fixation onset. Given the EEG literature on syntax processing, the presently observed timings suggest parallel word reading. We reckon that parallel word processing typifies reading, and that OB1-reader offers a good platform for theorizing about the reading brain.

International audience; Humans have evolved to interact smoothly with their environment and with others. There are highly complex processes that enable these interactions and many systems are engaged, from the peripheral somatosensory system to a distributed network of cortical regions. This chapter will address the pathway from the peripheral receptors to the brain, including steps where there is the potential for the processing and integration of information, as well as why these have occurred in our evolution. We have a vast system of somatosensory afferents that are distributed over our skin and in our bodies to capture precise signals about our interactions with the world. Somatosensory afference comes from mechanical, thermal, and chemical stimuli, where numerous different types of somatosensory afferent, namely those that respond to mechanoreceptive, thermoreceptive, and/or nociceptive signals respectively, register specific contact and behavior. These signals are persistent and there is considerable integration of this information even before it reaches the brain. Once the input reaches sub-cortical structures and is passed on to the cerebral cortex, there is again a wealth of processes that interact smoothly, to produce the awareness of our body in space and its interactions. These include principal somatosensory targets, such as the primary (S1) and secondary (S2) somatosensory cortices, and the insula. In the integration of information, many other regions are involved, including the activation of a range of cognitive (e.g. attention, memory, learning) and emotional/affective mechanisms, as well as multisensory processing. This chapter will consider the intricacies of these processes, by exploring the sensory origin of body perception.

In natural habitats, animals receive many stimuli that vary in place and time. In such habitats, they can express a wide range of behaviours that define the species’ “behavioural repertoire”. Farming or captive environments are designed to meet their basic biological needs (e.g. for rest, feeding), but are far less complex than natural habitats. Animals thus may not be able to express some of the behaviours from their repertoire and as a consequence experience boredom. The concept of environmental enrichment refers to a wide range of modifications to the environment of captive or farmed animals that offer adequate stimulation and facilitate the expression of highly motivated behaviour, thereby promoting positive emotions and improving animal welfare. Environmental enrichment can be divided into five (non-exclusive) categories: relational, feeding, occupational, physical and sensory enrichments. A good knowledge of the behaviour and the biology of the species is essential for the design of relevant enrichments. The benefits and drawbacks of enrichments need to be assessed in both short and long term by studying the use of enrichments in terms of occupancy value, the preference and motivation of animals to use them and the impact on welfare. To support positive animal welfare, high quality enrichment that engages animals over a long period of time should be seriously considered.

International audience; Laughter is informative about cognitive and pragmatic appraisals and its use and development begins in the first months of life. Adult studies show that the occurrence of laughter mimicry (i.e. laughter starting after a partner’s laugh within 1 second from its offset – El Haddad et al 2019) is influenced by context and interlocutor (Smoski & Bachorowski, 2003). Babies produce significantly less laughter mimicry in comparison to their caregivers (Nwokah et al., 1994). In comparison to adult-adult interactions, significant differences were also found in caregiver mimicry in response to child laughs over time, where high percentages were reported at initial time points, which subsequently decreased over time (Mazzocconi & Ginzburg, 2022). Less is known about laughter mimicry in middle-childhood. To fill this gap, the current study focuses on the analysis of caregiver-child interactions (6-11y/o) (ChiCo corpus - Bodur et al., 2021). The dataset is composed of video-recorded computer-mediated conversations (mean:17±3min) by 8 Parent-Child (PC) and Parent-Adult (PA - i.e. the parent of each PC dyad interacting with another adult) dyads, all engaged in the same guessing game. Two annotators identified 580 laughs (ELAN 6.4): 337 in PA interactions (per participant: 21±12) and 243 in PC interactions (110 C: 14±14; 133 P: 17±8). Wilcoxon-tests of frequency/minute between PC and PA conversations and between P and C were not significant. Given the variability in laughter production by participants, we measure mimicry in terms of Transitional Probability (TP), i.e. the probability of laughter mimicry given the total laughs produced by the partner. We observe consistently present laughter mimicry in all the PA dyads, however much higher variability in PC interactions (Figure 1). The overall TP means for PA and PC interactions are 0.27±0.17% and 0.14±0.14% (P: 0.13±0.16%; C: 0.16±0.14%) respectively. We observe significantly more laughter mimicry in PA conversations rather than PC (χ2 39.82, df=7, p

International audience; Large Language Models (LLM) are studied. Applications to chatbots and education are considered. A case study on Leonardo's contribution to astronomy is presented. Major problems with accuracy, reproducibility and traceability of answers are reported for ChatGPT, GPT-4, BLOOM and Google Bard. Possible reasons for problems are discussed and some solutions are proposed.

National audience

International audience; Abstract Coarse-grained descriptions of collective motion of flocking systems are often derived for the macroscopic or the thermodynamic limit. However, many real flocks are small sized (10 to 100 individuals), called the mesoscopic scales, where stochasticity arising from the finite flock sizes is important. Developing mesoscopic scale equations, typically in the form of stochastic differential equations, can be challenging even for the simplest of the collective motion models. Here, we take a novel data-driven equation learning approach to construct the stochastic mesoscopic descriptions of a simple self-propelled particle (SPP) model of collective motion. In our SPP model, a focal individual can interact with k randomly chosen neighbours within an interaction radius. We consider k = 1 (called stochastic pairwise interactions), k = 2 (stochastic ternary interactions), and k equalling all available neighbours within the interaction radius (equivalent to Vicsek-like local averaging). The data-driven mesoscopic equations reveal that the stochastic pairwise interaction model produces a novel form of collective motion driven by a multiplicative noise term (hence termed, noise-induced flocking). In contrast, for higher order interactions (k > 1), including Vicsek-like averaging interactions, yield collective motion driven primarily by the deterministic forces. We find that the relation between the parameters of the mesoscopic equations describing the dynamics and the population size are sensitive to the density and to the interaction radius, exhibiting deviations from mean-field theoretical expectations. We provide semi-analytic arguments potentially explaining these observed deviations. In summary, our study emphasizes the importance of mesoscopic descriptions of flocking systems and demonstrates the potential of the data-driven equation discovery methods for complex systems studies.

National audience

National audience

International audience; Data processing is central to biomedical imaging and over the years the different tools andalgorithms available to study a dataset have multiplied. Recently, multiple studies in the literature havedemonstrated how the exact choice of analysis pipeline can have an impact on the conclusions of scientificexperiments. Those studies focused on varying different components of the analysis pipeline includingdifferences observed across scientific software, across preprocessing pipelines or even across differentoperating systems. In addition, the development of many-analyst studies -- in which independent teams ofexperts are tasked to answer the same research questions using the same input data -- have shed lights intohow much differences can be expected across pipelines selected by experts from the scientific community. Inthis talk, we review different examples showcasing this analytical variability. We will reflect on the underlying reasons that can explain the existence of this variability.

International audience; Assess short-term and long-term effects of chronic exposure to an ultrahigh static magnetic (B 0) field on mice inner ear in the context of MR safety of human scanning at 11.7 T. Methods: Mice were chronically exposed to a B 0 field of 11.7 T or 17.2 T during ten 2-h exposure sessions evenly distributed over a period of 5 weeks, resulting in a total of 20 h of exposure per mouse. During exposure sessions, mice were anesthetized and positioned either parallel or antiparallel to B 0. Before, during, and 2 weeks after the magnetic-field exposure period, mice performed behavioral tests (balance beam, rotarod, and swim tests) to evaluate their short-term and long-term motor coordination and balance. An auditory brainstem response (ABR) test was finally performed to assess the functional integrity of mice cochlea, 2 weeks after the last exposure. Results: After awaking from anesthesia following B 0 exposures at 11.7 Tor 17.2 T, mice displayed a transient (

IntroductionWhether complex movement training benefits inhibitory functions and transfers the effects to non-practiced motor and cognitive tasks is still unknown. The present experiment addressed this issue using a bimanual coordination paradigm. The main hypothesis was that bimanual coordination training allows for improving the involved cognitive (i.e., inhibition) mechanisms and then, transferring to non-practiced cognitive and motor tasks, that share common processes.Methods17 older participants (72.1 ± 4.0 years) underwent 2 training and 3 test sessions (pre, post, and retention one week after) over three weeks. Training included maintaining bimanual coordination anti-phase pattern (AP) at high frequency while inhibiting the in-phase pattern (IP). During the test sessions, participants performed two bimanual coordination tasks and two cognitive tasks involving inhibition mechanisms. Transfer benefits of training on reaction time (RT), and total switching time (TST) were measured. In the cognitive tasks (i.e., the Colour Word Stroop Task (CWST) and the Motor and Perceptual Inhibition Test (MAPIT)), transfer effects were measured on response times and error rates. Repeated one-way measures ANOVAs and mediation analyses were conducted.ResultsResults confirmed that training was effective on the trained task and delayed the spontaneous transition frequency. Moreover, it transferred the benefits to untrained bimanual coordination and cognitive tasks that also involve inhibition functions. Mediation analyses confirmed that the improvement of inhibitory functions mediated the transfer of training in both the motor and cognitive tasks.DiscussionThis study confirmed that bimanual coordination practice can transfer training benefits to non-practiced cognitive and motor tasks since presumably they all share the same cognitive processes.

International audience; Synthèse Perceptive de Champ Sonore Tridimensionnel

International audience; Estimation de directivités acoustiques à l'aide d'antennes non-sphériques de microphones

International audience; Accessibilité des jeux vidéo et tir sportif en réalité virtuelle aux personnes aveugles et malvoyantes

International audience; Un cadre perceptual--neuronal--physique pour l'écoute artificielle

International audience; Étude de la posture et de la transmission biomécanique des vibrations chez le guitariste électrique.

National audience; IntroductionLa presbyacousie comme les maladies neurodégénératives apparaissent insidieusement avec l’âge. Enjeu majeur de santé publique, elles sont néanmoins sous diagnostiquées car la présence de l’une entrave l’objectivation de l’autre.ObjectifsIntégrer lors du bilan cognitif en hôpital de jour en centre mémoire un dépistage des troubles de la compréhension de la parole dans le bruit.MéthodesCent vingt-deux participants, dont 70 femmes, d’âge moyen 72,9 (60–87 ans) ont réalisé trois épreuves : questionnaire Hearing Handicap Inventory for Elderly-Screening (HHIES) mesure la gêne auditive ; test de compréhension de la parole dans le bruit (dispositif ambulatoire – Vocal Rapide dans le Bruit, VRB Leclercq et al., 2018) et échelle cognitive de Mattis. Des analyses corrélationnelles entre l’âge, le résultat du VRB, le score HHIE-S et à la Mattis ont été menées.RésultatsLes corrélations objectivent une association entre les capacités de compréhension de la parole dans le bruit et l’âge (r = 0,324, p < 0,001), la gêne auditive (r = 0,249, p = 0,006) et les troubles cognitifs globaux (r = −0,502, p < 0,001).DiscussionCes résultats confortent le lien établi entre l’âge et les capacités de compréhension de la parole dans le bruit. Ils objectivent un lien entre la plainte auditive et les capacités de compréhension de la parole dans le bruit et révèlent que ces capacités sont amoindries chez les personnes ayant des troubles cognitifs objectivés à l’échelle de la Mattis.ConclusionLe dépistage précoce d’un déficit auditif lors d’évaluations cognitives est indispensable puisque la surdité est le principal facteur modifiable de la démence.

The present study investigates the contribution of first-order accuracy and uncertainty to global performance monitoring. After a set of four trials of an orientation matching task, participants first reported their perceived mean response, and then a region around that mean estimate corresponding to their estimation of their responses’ dispersion. We could assess how first-order performance, endogenous uncertainty (estimated from the variability of first-order performance), and exogenous uncertainty impacted global performance monitoring. In two experiments, we found that participants were able to track and use the average and dispersion of their first-order performance to monitor global performance. The calibration of metacognitive judgments to first-order performance was better when endogenous uncertainty was lower. Similarly, exogenous sources of uncertainty (i.e., stimulus- and attention-related) also modulated the calibration between global metacognitive reports and first-order performance. These results suggest that people can reliably estimate the mean and variability of their performance and use it together with exogenous uncertainty to inform their global performance monitoring. However, this capacity decreases in the presence of both internal and external uncertainty. We discuss these results in light of the role of uncertainty in perceptual metacognition and the relationship between local and global performance monitoring.

The objective of the present experimental study was to compare how young people, healthy older people, and older people with dementia cognitively integrated three factors (Intention, Consequence, and Apology) when making blame-like judgments (prosecution and revenge) and forgiveness-like judgments (resentment and reconciliation). Thirty-four young people (Mage = 22.12, SD = 3.44), 22 healthy older people (Mage = 71.82, SD = 8.69), and 18 older people with dementia (Mage = 75, SD = 10.06) participated in the study. The participants were confronted with 12 scenarios built by combining the three factors for each moral judgment. Analyses of variance with repeated measures were applied to the study data. Whatever the type of judgment, older people with dementia differed from young people and healthy older people about the number of factors considered. Young people and healthy older people used the three information cues (Intent, Consequence, and Apology) for the four judgment tasks (prosecution, revenge, reconciliation, and resentment). In comparison, older people with dementia gave greater weight to Intention. In contrast to young and healthy older people, older people with dementia processed blame-like and forgiveness-like judgments similarly. The cognitive impairment prevented older people with dementia from differentiating moral judgments into two categories and reduced information integration when making moral judgments. These findings might be useful for clinical practice.

In human spatial awareness, information appears to be represented according to 3-D projective geometry. It structures information integration and action planning within an internal representation space. The way different first person perspectives of an agent relate to each other, through transformations of a world model, defines a specific perception scheme for the agent. In mathematics, this collection of transformations is called a `group' and it characterizes a geometric space by acting on it. We propose that imbuing world models with a `geometric' structure, given by a group, is one way to capture different perception schemes of agents. We explore how changing the geometric structure of a world model impacts the behavior of an agent. In particular, we focus on how such geometrical operations transform the formal expression of epistemic value in active inference as driving an agent's curiosity about its environment, and impact exploration behaviors accordingly. We used group action as a special class of policies for perspective-dependent control. We compared the Euclidean versus projective groups. We formally demonstrate that the groups induce distinct behaviors. The projective group induces nonlinear contraction and dilatation that transform entropy and epistemic value as a function of the choice of frame, which fosters exploration behaviors. This contribution opens research avenues in which a geometry structures \textit{a priori} an agent's internal representation space for information integration and action planning.

This study aims at investigating the added value of an augmented reality head-up display (AR-HUD) in relation to a conventional head-up display (C-HUD) to perform navigation tasks in a complex road situation. The notion of complexity was defined according to two main factors: infrastructure and traffic. It was used to identify and select real road situations presenting different sources of complexity. This study focuses on one of these situations, which was reproduced on a simulator and broken down into three use cases. A total of 32 participants performed three navigation tasks, using the AR-HUD or the C-HUD. Both objective and subjective data were collected. Data analyses, using linear mixed model analyses of variance and multilevel logistic regression, indicate a slight advantage of the AR-HUD. Participants using the AR-HUD make fewer errors and drive faster on average. Moreover, the AR-HUD is assessed to be more useful and easier to understand than the C-HUD. However, this interface shows limitations, in particular because it does not enable drivers to anticipate the manoeuvre to be conducted. The study raises questions about the design of an instrument system that would help drivers not only identify, but also build a representation of a forthcoming manoeuvre to be performed.

Procédure d'engagements : l'article L. 464-2 du code de commerce est conforme à la constitution mais le refus d'engagement est une décision qui fait grief, susceptible de faire l'objet d'une voie de recours ! Cons. const., décision n° 2022-1035 QPC du 10 février 2023. Résumé. Le Conseil constitutionnel valide la conformité à la Constitution de l'article L. 464-2 du code de commerce, mais affirme que la décision de refus d'engagements est une décision de fond susceptible de faire l'objet d'un recours immédiat.

The aim of this study is to examine the associations of perceived parenting, self-construal and psychological flourishing within a cross-cultural perspective. Instruments tapping into four types of perceived parenting style (psychological control, behavioural control, autonomous support, and responsiveness), positive and negative affect, relational self and flourishing were administered to a sample of 579 university students from France (n = 325) and Turkey (n = 324). Latent profile analysis (LPA) and ANOVA tests were performed. The results showed that French university students presented lower levels of positive affect, negative affect and psychological flourishing compared to Turkish university students. Differences were found between these two groups in terms of psychological and behavioural control, and their respective consequences on self-construal and psychological flourishing. Turkish parents present higher levels of psychological and behavioural control in their relationships with their children compared to French counterparts.

An effective way to quantify metacognitive abilities is to ask participants to estimate their confidence in the accuracy of their response during a cognitive task. A recent meta-analysis1raised the issue that most assessments of metacognitive abilities in schizophrenia spectrum disorders may be confounded with cognitive deficits, which are known to be present in this population. Therefore, it remains unclear whether the reported metacognitive deficits are metacognitive in nature, or rather inherited from cognitive deficits. Arbitrating between these two possibilities requires equating task performance between experimental groups. Here, we aimed to characterize metacognitive performance among individuals with schizophrenia across three tasks (visual detection, familiarity, recollection) using a within-subject design, while controlling experimentally for intra-individual task performance and statistically for between-subject task performance. In line with our hypotheses, we found no metacognitive deficit for visual detection and familiarity judgements. While we expected metacognition for recollection to be specifically impaired among individuals with schizophrenia, we found evidence in favor of an absence of a deficit in that domain also. The clinical relevance of our findings is discussed in light of a hierarchical framework of metacognition.

International audience; INTRODUCTION: Working memory (WM) disorders often persist long time after an acquired brain injury (ABI), and involve difficulties in daily life (Azouvi et al. 2017). For several decades, methods of cognitive rehabilitation and training in healthy subjects have been developed. But contrary to the literature on healthy subjects (Papa et al, 2020), to date there are still very few studies evaluating the cerebral correlates of rehabilitation in patients with ABI. The objective of this study is to study the effects of cognitive rehabilitation on brain plasticity. METHODS: PLASTIM-MDTC is a study with a repeated single case experimental design on individuals with moderate to severe TBI. After two baseline cognitive assessments, patients underwent WM rehabilitation during 3 months (3/week). The effectiveness of rehabilitation was evaluated post-rehabilitation and after 3 months. A multimodal MRI was performed before and after rehabilitation. PRELIMINARY RESULTS: We will present the results obtained for 3 patients. The results showed an effectiveness of rehabilitation on the behavioral level and an evolution of the functional activation profile on MRI during an n-back task. Primary outcome measures showed an average improvement in the Brown-Peterson task and a mean decrease in complaints in daily life related to WM. However, the evolution profile differed from one patient to another, with higher improvement in patients with more severe baseline impairments, variability between outcome measure in post and 3 months follow-up assessment, and different fMRI n-back evolution profile (decrease or increase). Interestingly, a far transfer in long-term memory appears in some patients, especially during the 3-months follow-up. DISCUSSION-CONCLUSION: The preliminary results of the PLASTIM study are in agreement with those observed in the repeated case studies of Hubacher et al (2015) on MS patients. The continuation of this research should make it possible to study the different evolution profiles and contribute to the search for early markers of the effectiveness of rehabilitation.

International audience; Learning to read In this article, we discuss two separate, but related topics. First, we briefly describe the processes used to encode speech sounds and meaning in written French. These processes include grapheme-phoneme correspondences, the clustering of phonemes to form syllables, lexicon building, word formation processes, and word organization to form sentences and passages of text. Then, we refer to the "simple model of reading" to describe the fundamental skills that underly reading comprehension in primary school, mainly visual word identification and oral comprehension.; Dans cet article, nous traitons de deux sujets distincts, mais interreliés. D'abord, nous décrivons brièvement les procédés qui servent à encoder les sons de la parole et le sens en français écrit. Ces procédés comprennent les correspondances graphème-phonème, le groupement des phonèmes pour former des syllabes, la constitution du lexique, les procédés de formation des mots et l'assemblage des mots pour former des phrases et des passages de texte. Puis, nous nous référons au « modèle simple de la lecture » pour décrire les habiletés fondamentales qui président à la compréhension de l'écrit à l'école primaire, notamment l'identification visuelle des mots et la compréhension de l'oral.