Le développement de la capacité à élaborer et communiquer verbalement une représentation spatiale complexe telle qu’un itinéraire est encore peu connu. Cet article propose une analyse de descriptions verbales d’itinéraires virtuels complexes produites par des enfants de 8 ans, 10 ans et des jeunes adultes. Nous appuyant sur les travaux de Denis et collaborateurs ayant caractérisé les descriptions verbales d’itinéraires chez l’adulte, nous avons considéré les mentions de repères, d’actions et leurs associations. Les résultats montrent qu’avec l’âge, on observe une diminution du nombre des repères et actions mentionnés seuls au profit du nombre d’actions associées à une indication spatiale et de repères associés à une action et à des indications spatiales. Ces associations révèlent la construction de connaissances de type trajet chez les enfants. De plus, cette étude montre que le type d’analyse proposé et développé par Denis et collaborateurs chez l’adulte s’applique aussi aux productions verbales des enfants. Elle permet d’observer que les descriptions d’itinéraires se structurent graduellement dans un discours qui est de plus en plus efficace pour la navigation.

Aun se sabe poco sobre el desarrollo de la capacidad de elaborar y comunicar verbalmente una representacion espacial compleja como un itinerario. Este articulo propone un analisis de las descripciones verbales de itinerarios virtuales complejos producidos por ninos de 8 anos, ninos de 10 anos y jovenes adultos. Basandonos en los trabajos de Denis y sus colegas, que caracterizaron las descripciones verbales de itinerarios en adultos, consideramos las menciones de puntos de referencia, acciones y sus asociaciones. Los resultados muestran que, con la edad, disminuye el numero de puntos de referencia y acciones mencionados por si solos en favor del numero de acciones asociadas a una indicacion espacial y de puntos de referencia asociados a una accion e indicaciones espaciales. Estas asociaciones revelan la construccion de conocimientos tipo trayecto en los ninos. Ademas, este estudio demuestra que el tipo de analisis propuesto y desarrollado por Denis y sus colegas para los adultos tambien se aplica a las producciones verbales de los ninos. Permite observar que las descripciones de itinerarios se estructuran progresivamente en un discurso cada vez mas eficaz para la navegacion.

We are still poorly informed about how children acquire and communicate a complex spatial representation. This study analyses spatial descriptions of virtual routes by 8- and 10-year-old children and young adults. Based on the work by Denis and collaborators on the features of spatial descriptions, we considered the verbal production of landmarks, of actions and of their associations. The results show that the number of landmarks or actions mentioned alone decreases with age, while the number of landmarks linked with an action and spatial information increases between the ages of 8 and 10, showing the acquisition of some route knowledge. Although scarcer, the number of landmarks linked with both action and spatial information also increases from 8 years to adulthood. The study shows that the method developed in adults to analyse spatial description also applies to verbal descriptions by children, revealing that the structure of spatial discourse gradually becomes more efficient for navigation.

ObjectiveThe posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) plays a critical role in the ‘social brain’. Its neurodevelopment and relationship with the social impairment in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are not well understood. We explored the relationship between social cognition and the neurodevelopment of the pSTS in ASD.MethodWe included 44 adults with high‐functioning ASD and 36 controls. We assessed their performances on the ‘Reading the mind in the eyes’ test (for 34 of 44 subjects with ASD and 30 of 36 controls), their fixation time on the eyes with eye tracking (for 35 of 44 subjects with ASD and 30 of 36 controls) and the morphology of the caudal branches of the pSTS (length and depth), markers of the neurodevelopment, with structural MRI.ResultsThe right anterior caudal ramus of the pSTS was significantly longer in patients with ASD compared with controls (52.6 mm vs. 38.3 mm; P = 1.4 × 10−3; Cohen's d = 0.76). Its length negatively correlated with fixation time on the eyes (P = 0.03) in the ASD group and with the ‘Reading the mind in the eyes’ test scores in both groups (P = 0.03).ConclusionOur findings suggest that the neurodevelopment of the pSTS is related to the ASD social impairments.

Two experiments were run to complete our understanding of the role of verbal and visuospatial encoding in the construction of a spatial model from visual input. In experiment 1 a dual task paradigm was applied to young adults who learned a route in a virtual environment and then performed a series of nonverbal tasks to assess spatial knowledge. Results indicated that landmark knowledge as asserted by the visual recognition of landmarks was not impaired by any of the concurrent task. Route knowledge, assessed by recognition of directions, was impaired both by a tapping task and a concurrent articulation task. Interestingly, the pattern was modulated when no landmarks were available to perform the direction task. A second experiment was designed to explore the role of verbal coding on the construction of landmark and route knowledge. A lexical-decision task was used as a verbal-semantic dual task, and a tone decision task as a nonsemantic auditory task. Results show that these new concurrent tasks impaired differently landmark knowledge and route knowledge. Results can be interpreted as showing that the coding of route knowledge could be grounded on both a coding of the sequence of events and on a semantic coding of information. These findings also point on some limits of Baddeley's working memory model.

Two experiments were run to complete our understanding of the role of verbal and visuospatial encoding in the construction of a spatial model from visual input. In experiment 1 a dual task paradigm was applied to young adults who learned a route in a virtual environment and then performed a series of nonverbal tasks to assess spatial knowledge. Results indicated that landmark knowledge as asserted by the visual recognition of landmarks was not impaired by any of the concurrent task. Route knowledge, assessed by recognition of directions, was impaired both by a tapping task and a concurrent articulation task. Interestingly, the pattern was modulated when no landmarks were available to perform the direction task. A second experiment was designed to explore the role of verbal coding on the construction of landmark and route knowledge. A lexical-decision task was used as a verbal-semantic dual task, and a tone decision task as a nonsemantic auditory task. Results show that these new concurrent tasks impaired differently landmark knowledge and route knowledge. Results can be interpreted as showing that the coding of route knowledge could be grounded on both a coding of the sequence of events and on a semantic coding of information. These findings also point on some limits of Baddeley's working memory model.

Abstract: We tested the hypothesis that a route's memorability is dependent on the frequency with which people are exposed to visual landmarks. Undergraduates learned either a route through an urban area lacking visually salient features, or a route in a neighborhood with many shops and urban objects. They were then asked to recall the learned route in the form of route directions and sketch maps. The results showed higher recall performance for the richer environment. When presented with photographs depicting scenes along the route, participants exposed to the richer environment had higher recognition scores and shorter response times than the others. The data confirm the functional role of landmarks in route memory and wayfinding.

In this study, a personalization method (Guida, Tardieu, & Nicolas, European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 21: 862–896 2009) was applied to a free-recall task. Fifteen pairs of words, composed of an object and a location, were presented to 93 participants, who had to mentally associate each pair and subsequently recall the objects. A 30-s delay was introduced on half of the trials, the presentation rate was manipulated (5 or 10 s per item), and verbal and visuospatial working memory tests were administered to test for their effects on the serial curve. Two groups were constituted: a personalized group, for whom the locations were well-known places on their university campus, and a nonpersonalized group, for whom the locations did not refer to known places. Since personalization putatively operationalizes long-term working memory (Ericsson & Kintsch, Psychological Review, 102: 211–245 1995)—namely, the capacity to store information reliably and rapidly in long-term memory—and if we take a dual-store approach to memory, the personalization advantage would be expected to be greater for pre-recency than for recency items. Overall, the results were compatible with long-term working memory theory. They contribute to validating the personalization method as a methodology to characterize the contribution of long-term memory storage to performance in working memory tasks.

An experiment was run to complete our understanding of the involvement of working memory (WM) components in the construction of a spatial model from visual input, considering some of the visuospatial abilities known to modulate performance. In addition, to allow for consideration of the flexibility of the spatial representation, routes in a virtual environment were presented with a route perspective, and tests were presented with route and survey perspectives. The results indicate that the verbal and spatial WM are only involved in the memorisation of certain types of information, and that their involvement depends on the change of perspective necessitated by the task. Thus, even when the learning material and the tests used to assess performance are only visual, a verbal recoding of some information is necessary. Moreover, individual differences modulate the involvement of WM; an individual with higher visuospatial capacities uses more spatial WM than an individual with lower spatial capacities.

This research investigates the role of different memory components in the age-related decline of new route learning. Few studies have considered real route learning, for which the situation can be more complex, and the richness greater than with simple mazes. In this experiment, the memory of a route in a real city has been assessed considering visual scene recognition, directions recognition, and temporal order memorization. Thirty young adults (m = 25 years old) and 30 older adults (m = 70 years old) have watched the video of the route twice before performing the three recognition tasks. Various cognitive abilities (episodic memory, verbal and visuo-spatial working memory, short-term binding, inhibition, flexibility, and mental rotation ability) have then been assessed through different neuropsychological tests. The results demonstrate that older adults have poorer performance than younger in the three route learning tasks: visual scene recognition task, direction recognition task, and temporal order recognition task. Moreover, mediation analyses indicate that episodic memory performance partly explains the effect of aging on visual scene recognition, while working memory capacity performance (measured with Corsi's block test, digit span test, and multimodal span test) partly explains the effect of aging on direction recognition. Spatial memory involved in real navigation and route learning is thus impaired in normal aging, which is partly due to the decline of episodic and working memory components.

Complementary tests: Family scenes (episodic memory), Corsi blocks (visuo-spatial working memory), digit span task (verbal working memory), binding span task, inhibition flexibility test, mental rotation test, Mill Hill vocabulary test, Mini Mental Scale examination, spatial representation questionnaire of Pazzaglia (self estimation of the sense of direction and spatial representation preferences).

Predictive inferences are anticipations of what could happen next in the text we are reading. These inferences seem to be activated during reading, but a delay is necessary for their construction. To determine the length of this delay, we first used a classical word-naming task. In the second experiment, we used a Stroop-like task to verify that inference activation was not due to strategies applied during the naming task. The results show that predictive inferences are naturally activated during text reading, after approximately 1 s.

When we follow a route in an unknown city, we build a mental representation of the environment, which is stored in long-term memory and could be used later in different kind of tasks like recognizing the place, redoing the route, or drawing a map. In this experiment, we focus on the cognitive resources that are used to build and then manipulate that mental representation, and the effect of aging on the spatial representation. Previous research has demonstrated age-related decline in the use of spatial representation, but the spatial representation is complex and requires the integration of many components that may show differential susceptibility to aging. Different tasks were used to assess the effect of aging on different components of the spatial representation. The video of an unfamiliar route in a city near Paris was projected to the young and older participants twice. After the presentation, four tasks were used to assess the mental representation of the participants (visual recognition task, direction decision task, order decision task, and statement verification). Different tests were used to identify the factors that explain individual differences in the performance. The results show that older adults have poorer performance than younger adults in the 4 tasks. Analyses of mediation show that the effect of aging on visual recognition task would be explained by the impairment of episodic memory. Moreover, the effect of aging on the direction task would be explained by the impairment of working memory.