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Constructivist and ecological approaches are also observed in tactile perception studies. The question is whether identification and localization are dissociated in the tactile modality as well, and whether Norman's conception may be generalized to the field of touch. An analogue to blindsight was evidenced in passive touch, but no such dissociation was observed in active touch. A study is in progress in this domain.

Les liens entre le monde de la science, avec ses experiences de laboratoire, et le monde profane, preoccupe de ses experiences quotidiennes, apparaissent paradoxalement a la fois tres intimes et distendus. La psychologie scientifique eclaire par ses temoignages ces difficultes de communication. Dans ce domaine, en effet, ou le langage utilise est souvent accessible a tous, l’ecoute attentive et reciproque ne semble pourtant pas naturelle a ces deux mondes. A partir d’exemples choisis dans deux sous-disciplines de la psychologie, la psychologie de l’enfant et la psychologie sociale, les auteurs ont voulu rendre compte de ces difficultes, sans reellement pouvoir apporter de solutions qui permettraient, par une education reciproque, un partage eclaire du savoir.

Summary : How do 5 to 9 month-old infants master the invariant « to be in between » ? Two experiments investigated the child's apprehension of the spatial relationship, « an object is between two other objects », and their detection of the invariance of this relationship over displacements of the objects. 57 infants, aged 4 to 9 months, were presented with objects undergoing three types of movement : two rotations in the horizontal plane (180° and 90°) and a rotation in the vertical plane. These movements were visible in one experiment and invisible in the second one. Only the central object was moveable, and the infants were expected to look at and to grasp that object after the display was moved. The results show that the infants tended to look at the central object, even when they did not grasp it or grasped a different object. Performance varied as a function of conditions, the easiest condition being the 180° rotation, the 90° one being always the most difficult. It is concluded that infants as young as 5 month master the invariant « to be in between » whether the display is visible or not when moved. Key words : spatial invariant, in between relationship, sensori-motor coordination., Résumé Le but de ces deux expériences est l'étude d'une relation spatiale « un objet est situé au milieu de deux autres » et de l'invariance de cette relation après le déplacement des objets. 57 bébés âgés de 4 à 9 mois ont participé aux deux recherches. On procède à trois types de déplacements : une translation de 180°, de 90° et une rotation dans le plan vertical. La tâche de l'enfant est le repérage visuo-moteur de l'objet central après déplacement. Les résultats montrent que le repérage visuel de l'objet central s'effectue bien, même si le bébé ne prend pas d'objet ou en prend un autre. Les performances varient en fonction des situations, la translation de 180° est la mieux réussie, celle de 90° est toujours la plus difficile. Que l'objet soit visible ou non pendant le déplacement, le bébé possède l'invariant « être au milieu de » dès 4 mois. Mots clés : invariant spatial, relation entre deux objets, coordination sensorimotrice., Pineau Arlette, Streri Arlette. Etude de l'invariance d'une relation spatiale chez les bébés de 4 à 9 mois : être entre deux objets. In: L'année psychologique. 1985 vol. 85, n°4. pp. 489-502.

Summary The purpose of this research is to determine the conditions of production of utterances with vouloir (to want) and dire (to say) of the form : « je veux (j'ai dit) qu'il » and « il veut (il a dit) qu'il... » in children from 3;6 to 6 years old in situations of picture description. The results confirm other results obtained in quite different situations of communication between individuals, i.e. : — in the « vouloir » condition, from the age of 4 years children are capable of expressing verbally a relation between two people in the scene of the picture ; but children of 3;6-4 years have difficulty in expressing their point of view on the picture. — In the « dire » conditiont when children are asked to recall what they said about pictures after a 10 minutes delay, they produce narratives comprising the semantic features. Narrative seems to function later than either direct or indirect discourse. Narrative is not observed when the recall takes place immediately after the discourse., Résumé Cette recherche vise à déterminer les conditions de production des énoncés avec vouloir et dire du type « je veux (j'ai dit) qu'il » et « il veut (il a dit) qu'il... », chez des enfants de 3;6 à 6 ans, dans des situations de description d'images. Les résultats ont confirmé ceux obtenus dans des situations totalement différentes que sont les dialogues entre des personnages, c'est-à-dire : avec vouloir, dès 4 ans, les enfants savent traduire dans le discours une relation entre deux personnages d'une scène de l'image ; mais les enfants de 3;6-4 ans ont des difficultés à donner leur point de vue sur l'image ; avec dire, lorsqu'on demande aux enfants de rappeler leur discours donné à propos de l'image et ceci après un délai de 10 minutes, ils produisent des récits comportant des marques aspectuelles. Le récit semble fonctionner plus tardivement que le discours direct ou indirect. Il n'apparaît pas lorsque Vénoncé rapporté suit immédiatement le discours primitif., Streri Arlette. Etude génétique des productions d'énoncés avec « vouloir » et « dire » obtenues à partir d'images. In: L'année psychologique. 1979 vol. 79, n°2. pp. 347-361.

Summary : Intermodal transfer in object's shape between vision and touch in 2-month-old infants. In a previous experiment, we provided evidence that intermodal transfer between touch and vision is possible in 2-month-old babies but only from touch to vision and not from vision to touch. This result does not support the thesis of the newborn's unity of senses. An explanation may be that we have used a difficult procedure for such young babies. In this experiment, an intermodal matching test is used. Tactual field and visual field of the baby are separated by a screen. The baby could explore visually an object and at the same time he touched another object which had the same shape or a different shape. Thirty-six 2-month-old babies took part in this experiment. 24 infants were in an intermodal matching situation and 12 infants in an unimodal perception situation (control group). Babies have avoidance reactions when the two objects are the same shape more often than when the two objects are a different shape but as often as in the unimodal condition. The difference of behaviors provides evidence that babies take in the same information when the object has an identical shape in visual and tactual modalities. Nevertheless, the avoidance reactions are more frequent from touch to vision than from vision to touch. This result confirms the precedent one obtained in intermodal transfer situation and is discussed. Key words : vision, touch, intermodal., Résumé Dans une précédente expérience, nous avons montré qu'un transfert intermodal existait entre la vision et le toucher à 2 mois mais seulement du toucher à la vision et non de la vision au toucher. Ce résultat va à l'encontre de la thèse d'une unité des sens à la naissance. Une des explications possibles a été que la procédure utilisée était trop lourde pour des bébés de 2 mois. Dans cette expérience, nous avons utilisé une procédure d'appariement d'objets afin de montrer qu'il existe un mécanisme central commun aux deux modalités. On a séparé l'espace tactile et l'espace visuel du bébé par un écran. Il devait explorer visuellement un objet pendant qu'il en tenait un autre de même forme ou de formes différentes. 36 bébés âgés de 2 mois ont participé à l'expérience. 24 bébés étaient placés dans une situation d'appariement intermodal et 12 bébés dans une situation contrôle de perception unimodale. Les bébés ont des réactions d'évitement plus souvent lorsque les deux objets ont une même forme que lorsqu'ils ont des formes différentes mais de manière comparable à la condition contrôle. Ainsi, les bébés sont sensibles à la redondance des informations lorsque les objets présentés sont de même forme. Néanmoins, ces réactions sont plus fréquentes lorsque la comparaison s'effectue à partir de la modalité tactile et non à partir de la modalité visuelle. Ce résultat confirme, malgré le changement de procédure, la dissymétrie obtenue dans les expériences de transfert intermodal. La discussion porte sur ce résultat. Mots clés : vision, toucher, intermodalité., Streri Arlette, Milhet Sylvie. Equivalences intermodales de la forme des objets entre la vision et le toucher chez les bébés de 2 mois. In: L'année psychologique. 1988 vol. 88, n°3. pp. 329-341.

The aim of this study is to discover whether there is intermodal transfer of shape from touch to vision and vice versa in 2- to 3-month-old infants who are not yet capable of reaching out to visually specified objects. In the first experiment, a habituation procedure was used for each mode, with two samples of 32 children. Habituation and discrimination were found in the tactile and visual modes, and total exploration time was identical for the two modes. In the second experiment, the 32 children were made familiar with an object in either the visual or the tactile mode, and then two tests were carried out using (1) the same or (2) a different object. If transfer does occur, exploration time for the familiar object presented in the new mode should be less than that required for a new object presented in the new mode. Also, the infants should recognize the familiar object when it is presented to them in the familiar mode. In addition, intramodal discrimination should occur after successive presentations in different modes. Intermodal transfer from touch to vision but not from vision to touch did occur. Comparison with data obtained in 4/5-month-old children provides the basis for discussion of these findings.

We investigated 5-month-old infants' cross-modal transfer of form from vision to touch and from touch to vision. In the first experiment, 32 infants were familiarized with an object visually or tactually (in the hand), until a habituation criterion was reached, and then they received three tests in which the same or a different object appeared in the same or a different modality. The dependent variable was the duration of a look or of a grasp. If infants are capable of cross-modal transfer they should (1) explore the familiar object presented in a new modality less than the novel object presented in the new modality, (2) remain habituated to the familiar object in the first modality after presentation of that object in the second modality, and (3) discriminate objects intra-modally. Cross-modal transfer was found from vision to touch, but not from touch to vision. In an attempt to employ a different test of touch-to-vision transfer, a second experiment was conducted, in which 16 infants were tactually familiarized with an object and then given a visual preference test; cross-modal transfer from touch to vision again did not occur. Tentative explanations are presented, involving the perception of modality-specific object properties and the development of eye-hand coordination.

Tactual discriminative abilities out of the control of vision are studied in 5-month-old infants, and compared with their visual discriminative abilities. The relevance of a habituation/reaction to novelty procedure in the tactual modality is tested. An infant control procedure is used in both modalities on 2 independent samples of 32 infants each. Habituation and discrimination occur tactually as well as visually, the duration of holds decreasing more than the duration of looks. Accumulated holding time is 3 times longer than accumulated looking time. Analogies and discrepancies between tactual and visual habituations are discussed, and the problem of sensory dominance is raised. Such results are basic to studies on cross-modal transfer, from vision to touch as well as from touch to vision.

Summary The purpose of the present study was to investigate the ten-month-olds' spatial organization. Two experiments involving an object search task, in a three-screen situation were carried out. Experiment one shows that the manual-search behaviour varies between 8 and 14 months of age. This variation was analyzed according to the « place error » question. In Experiment two, the relation between the subject and the environment was systematically modified. We analyse the subjects' behaviour according to such a spatial modification. Both experiments show that the 10-month olds spatial organization is dichotomie. We discuss the meaning of that issue., Résumé Nous présentons deux expériences sur l'organisation spatiale de l'enfant de 8 à 14 mois, dans une situation de recherche de l'objet occupant successivement trois places. Dans la première expérience, nous étudions l'évolution des modes de recherche de l'objet en fonction de l'âge et de la position relative du sujet par rapport aux cachettes. Dans la seconde expérience, on privilégie l'une des trois places et l'on modifie la relation entre le sujet et son environnement. Les résultats des deux expériences montrent essentiellement que l'enfant entre 8 et 14 mois organise son environnement en deux zones : une proche et l'autre éloignée. L'évolution des modes de recherche de'l'objet nous a, permis de distinguer trois niveaux de comportement., Maury Liliane, Streri Arlette. Recherche de l'objet : modifications des références spatiales chez le bébé de 8 à 14 mois. In: L'année psychologique. 1981 vol. 81, n°1. pp. 51-67.

4-month-old infants held 2 rings, 1 in each hand, out of view. The rings moved rigidly together and were either the same (Experiment 1) or different (Experiment 2) in substance, weight, texture, and shape. After haptic habituation to a ring display, patterns of preferential looking to visibly connected vs. separated rings provided evidence that the infants perceived the rings in both experiments as parts of one connected object. This perception was no weaker when the rings differed in shape and substance, even though infants were shown (Experiment 3) to detect that difference. In the haptic mode, as in the visual mode, infants appear to perceive object unity by analyzing motion but not by analyzing figural goodness. The findings suggest that an amodal mechanism underlies object perception.

Four-month-old infants held two rings, one in each hand, out of the field of view. In one condition, the rings could be moved independently; in the other condition, the rings could only be moved rigidly together. After exploring the rings haptically, infants received a haptic or visual test with pairs of rings that were connected or separated. The findings of four experiments provide evidence that infants explored the rings bimanually, producing patterns of rigid or independent motion, that infants discriminated between the two motion patterns, and that this discrimination transferred from touch to vision. Most importantly, the experiments provide evidence that infants perceived the unity and boundaries of objects by detecting the motion patterns they themselves produced. Infants who explored the independently movable rings perceived two distinct objects, whereas those who explored the rigidly movable rings perceived a single object that was connected between the two hands. Since the same motion patterns specify object boundaries in the visual mode, object perception may depend on a relatively central process.