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Since the end of the 1960's both musicologists and musicians have made a significant contribution towards the revival of ancient instruments and repertoire, as well as towards the reconstruction of interpretative style. The interesting point here is that one single repertoire is played in different ways, on different instruments. This peculiarity in the history of interpretation provides an unique opportunity to study the effects of various constraints on musical performance. According to K. Newell's (1986) definition of action as emerging from the interaction between organism, environment and task, music performance may be viewed as resulting from the interplay between performer, interpretative tradition, instrument and musical work. This unique situation is also a way to assess the lag between musical plans (projects) and their performance (achievement).

International audience; Researchers in cognitive neuroscience have become increasingly interested in how different aspects of tool use are integrated and represented by the brain. Comparatively less attention has been directed toward tool use actions themselves and how effective tool use behaviors are coordinated. In response, we take this opportunity to consider the mechanical principles of tool use actions and their relationship to motor learning. Using kinematic analysis, we examine both functional dynamics and joint contribution profiles of subjects with different levels of experience in a primordial percussive task. Our results show that the ability to successfully produce stone flakes using the Oldowan method did not correspond with any particular joint contribution profile. Rather, expertise in this tool use action was principally associated with the subject's ability to regulate the functional parameters that define the task itself.

"Various authors have suggested behavioural similarities between tool use in early hominins and chimpanzee nut cracking, where nut cracking might be interpreted as a precursor of more complex stone flaking. In this paper, we bring together and review two separate strands of research on chimpanzee and human tool use and cognitive abilities. Firstly, and in the greatest detail, we review our recent experimental work on behavioural organization and skill acquisition in nut-cracking and stone-knapping tasks, highlighting similarities and differences between the two tasks that may be informative for the interpretation of stone tools in the early archaeological record. Secondly, and more briefly, we outline a model of the comparative neuropsychology of primate tool use and discuss recent descriptive anatomical and statistical analyses of anthropoid primate brain evolution, focusing on cortico-cerebellar systems. By juxtaposing these two strands of research, we are able to identify unsolved problems that can usefully be addressed by future research in each of these two research areas." (source éditeur)

In this paper, we address the question of the conditions for persistence of technological boundaries. We use field studies to test the predictions generated by a theoretical model in analytical sociology and examine the micro-processes at stake in the non-diffusion of techniques: to which extent techniques contributes to a sharp disagreement between groups and promote polarization? The ultimate goal is to provide archaeologists with an empirically tested model to explain spatial distribution of technological clusters and maintenance of technological boundaries. Field studies examine ethnographic situations in four countries where social groups using different ceramic techniques for making utilitarian vessels live in close geographical proximity. Two situations enable us to examine the conditions under which technological boundaries persist, while two others enable us to analyze, through a boundary-making perspective, how differences in craft techniques contribute to polarization. Our data suggest that in a context where different techniques are used for different types of object there is a cognitive bias which fosters technological polarization. This cognitive bias develops in the course of interactions between actors living in close geographical proximity. Polarization increases when technological standards are used by different social groups, thereby favoring negative influence and persistent technological boundaries.

The necessity of a contextualised and functional approach to understand goal directed action. While E.J. Marey gave rise to such rich and diverse methodological ideas, it could have been the innovative starting point of a stream of scientific investigations, combining the necessity of experimental control and the relevance of real life situation favoured by human sciences. The study of movement is divided into works in social sciences that give priority to the meaning of the movements, i.e. it's social function, and research in movement sciences often based on movement without any functional relevance. In this paper we discuss four examples, voluntarily eclectic (walking, stone knapping, playing the piano and playing the violin). Through these four cases we show that a functional approach to action, taking into account the context and the goal, allows a better understanding of behaviour. Two types of interaction are discussed : the interaction between the organism and the environment, and tool-organism interaction. This framework draw a path to a pluridisciplinary approach to goal directed action. We argue that this is one of the best ways to reconcile opposite views based either on movement without purpose, or on the purpose without taking the movement itself into consideration., Par leur richesse méthodologique et la diversité des activités qu'ils abordent, les travaux de E.J. Marey auraient pu être le point de départ de recherches conjuguant les exigences de contrôle expérimental reconnues aux sciences de la vie et la pertinence à l'égard des situations de terrain qu'offrent les sciences humaines. Cependant l'étude du mouvement demeure clivée entre des travaux privilégiant l'étude du sens, de la finalité ou de la fonction sociale des mouvements ou des recherches en sciences du mouvement recourant souvent à des mouvements sans sens, dénués de fonctionnalité. Quatre exemples volontairement éclectiques (marche, taille de la pierre, jeu du piano et du violon) nous permettront de montrer le rôle primordial du contexte de l'action et de la finalité dans l'organisation des comportements à travers deux types d'interactions : celles du corps et de l'environnement et celles du sujet manipulant un outil. Ces recherches tracent la voie d'une approche pluridisciplinaire du mouvement qui permettrait de sortir des apories auxquelles conduit l'étude de sens sans mouvement et de mouvements sans sens., Bril Blandine, Goasdoué Rémi. Du mouvement sans sens ou du sens sans mouvement : rôle des finalités et des contextes dans l'étude de comportements moteurs. In: Intellectica. Revue de l'Association pour la Recherche Cognitive, n°51, 2009/1. Le continu mathématique. Nouvelles conceptions, nouveaux enjeux. pp. 273-293.

Ce texte est un rapport de fin de recherche issu de l'ACI cognitique.; Alors que l'utilisation d'outils est un thème depuis longtemps développé par l'archéologie et la primatologie d'une part et par l'ergonomie d'autre part, il n'existe que peu de travaux sur ce thème issus de la psychologie, des neurosciences et des sciences cognitives en général. Or l'utilisation d'outils et son apprentissage apparaissent comme une entrée privilégiée de l'étude de l'action complexe dirigée vers un but. Cette recherche aborde la question de l'activité finalisée à partir de l'étude de la maîtrise de l'utilisation d'outils dans un contexte «naturel».Un des intérêts essentiels de l'étude de l'action située et des processus d'acquisition associés, est, en effet, de permettre une meilleure compréhension de la manière dont sont mises en oeuvre, dans des actions de la vie quotidienne, les capacités de coordination et de contrôle qui les sous-tendent. Cette approche permet en outre de poser le problème de l'intégration du nombre nécessairement élevé des composantes de l'action, alors que les études expérimentales sont construites sur une certaine volonté d'étudier séparément ces composantes.