Search

To benefit from the exploration of their bodies and their physical and social environments, infants need to detect sensorimotor contingencies linking their actions to sensory feedback. This ability, which seems to be present in babies from birth and even in utero, has been widely used by researchers in their study of early development. However, a careful review of the literature, particularly the recent literature, suggests that babies may not be uniformly sensitive to all sensorimotor contingencies. This literature review examines in detail sensorimotor contingency detection in infants before the age of 1 year. Four aspects of sensorimotor contingency detection are considered: characteristics of action and feedback, contingency parameters, exposure conditions, and interindividual differences. For each topic, we highlight what favors and what hinders the detection of sensorimotor contingencies in infants. Our review also demonstrates the limitations of our knowledge about sensorimotor contingency detection. We emphasize the importance of making progress in this field at a time when sensorimotor contingency detection is of major interest in developmental robotics and artificial intelligence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The ability to sense and use the body parts in an organized and differentiated manner is a precursor of body knowledge in infancy. To acquire this ability, the infant's brain might explore the perceptual consequences of its bodily actions. Undifferentiated body movements would gradually be replaced by more precise actions. Only a very few studies have tested this 'global-to-local' hypothesis, and none of them have so far been replicated. In this study, we assessed arm differentiation in 4-, 6-, and 8-month-old infants using a new contingency detection task in which infants have to detect a contingency between one of their arms' activity and an audiovisual stimulus on a screen. We found that 4- to 8-month-old infants seem to be able to use their arms in a differentiated manner. However, surprisingly, we were not able to show a developmental trend in arm differentiation between 4 and 8 months of age. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Foetuses and infants possess coarse control of their body and may be sensitive to sensory feedback caused by their own movements. Body knowledge might develop during the first year of life in what can be called a 'global-to-local' manner. Nevertheless, the precise age at which infants come to possess well-differentiated local body knowledge requires further investigation. What the present study adds? 4- to 8-month-old infants seem able to use their arms in a differentiated manner when exposed to an audiovisual stimulation contingent on movements of one of their arms. However, we found no developmental trend in arm differentiation between 4 and 8 months of age. We hypothesize that infants' sensitivity to sensorimotor contingencies and their ability to narrow down contingencies to a specific limb might evolve with age as a function of the infant's current sensorimotor interests.

International audience; Much current work in robotics focuses on the development of robots capable of autonomous unsupervised learning. An essential prerequisite for such learning to be possible is that the agent should be sensitive to the link between its actions and the consequences of its actions, called sensorimotor contingencies. This sensitivity, and more particularly its role as a key drive of development, has been widely studied by developmental psychologists. However, the results of these studies may not necessarily be accessible or intelligible to roboticians. In this paper, we review the main experimental data demonstrating the role of sensitivity to sensorimotor contingencies in infants’ acquisition of four fundamental motor and cognitive abilities: body knowledge, memory, generalization, and goal-directedness. We relate this data from developmental psychology to work in robotics, highlighting the links between these two domains of research. In the last part of the article we present a blueprint architecture demonstrating how exploitation of sensitivity to sensorimotor contingencies, combined with the notion of “goal,” allows an agent to develop new sensorimotor skills. This architecture can be used to guide the design of specific computational models, and also to possibly envisage new empirical experiments.

International audience; The evolution of the care of premature babies is having an effect on a particular diffi culty, that of the development of parenthood and the parent-baby relationship hampered by an early birth. The short- and long-term consequences of any disruption to these two dimensions can be considerable and the hospital must take into account the issue when caring for parents and their premature baby.; L’évolution de la prise en charge de la prématurité met à jour un écueil particulier, celui d’un développement de la parentalité et de la relation parents-bébé entravé par une naissance trop précoce z Les conséquences à court et à long termes des perturbations de ces deux dimensions en font desenjeux majeurs dans la prise en charge institutionnelle des parents et de leur enfant prématuré.

The first time a newborn is held, he is attracted by the human's face. A talking face is even more captivating, as it is the first time he or she hears and sees another human talking. Older infants are relatively good at detecting the relationship between images and sounds when someone is addressing to them, but it is unclear whether this ability is dependent on experience or not. Using an intermodal matching procedure, we presented newborns with 2 silent point-line displays representing the same face uttering different sentences while they were hearing a vocal-only utterance that matched 1 of the 2 stimuli. Nearly all of the newborns looked longer at the matching point-line face than at the mismatching 1, with prior exposure to the stimuli (Experiment 1) or without (Experiment 2). These results are interpreted in terms of newborns' ability to extract common visual and auditory information of continuous speech events despite a short experience with talking faces. The implications are discussed in the light of the language processing and acquisition literature. (PsycINFO Database Record

International audience; à venir

Observational learning is probably one of the most powerful factors determining progress during child development. When learning a new skill, infants rely on their own exploration; but they also frequently benefit from an adult’s verbal support or from demonstration by an adult modelling the action. At what age and under what conditions does adult demonstration really help the infant to learn a novel behavior? In this review, we summarize recently published work we have conducted on the acquisition of tool use during the second year of life. In particular, we consider under what conditions and to what extent seeing a demonstration from an adult advances an infant's understanding of how to use a tool to obtain an out-of-reach object. Our results show that classic demonstration starts being helpful at 18 months of age. When adults explicitly show their intention prior to demonstration, even 16-month-old infants learn from the demonstration. On the other hand, providing an explicit demonstration (“look at how I do it”) is not very useful before infants are ready to succeed by themselves anyway. In contrast, repeated observations of the required action in a social context, without explicit reference to this action, considerably advances the age of success and the usefulness of providing a demonstration. We also show that the effect of demonstration can be enhanced if the demonstration makes the baby laugh. Taken together, the results from this series of studies on observational learning of tool use in infants suggest, first, that when observing a demonstration, infants do not know what to pay attention to: demonstration must be accompanied by rich social cues to be effective; second, infants’ attention is inhibited rather than enhanced by an explicit demand of “look at what I do”; and finally a humorous situation considerably helps infants understand the demonstration.

International audience; Many studies have shown that making children laugh enhances certain cognitive capacities such as attention, motivation, perception and/or memory, which in turn enhance learning. However, no study thus far has investigated whether laughing has an effect on learning earlier in infancy. The goal of this study was to see whether using humour with young infants in a demonstration of a complex tool-use task can enhance their learning. Fifty-three 18-month-old infants participated in this study and were included either in a humorous or a control demonstration group. In both groups infants observed an adult using a tool to retrieve an out-of-reach toy. What differed between groups was that in the humorous demonstration group, instead of playing with the toy, the adult threw it on the floor immediately after retrieval. The results show that infants who laughed at the demonstration in the humorous demonstration group reproduced significantly more frequent target actions than infants who did not laugh and those in the control group. This effect is discussed with regard to individual differences in terms of temperament and social capacities as well as positive emotion and dopamine release.

International audience

Resume But de l’etude Le developpement des bebes accueillis en Maison d’Accompagnement Parents Enfants (MAPE) avec leur mere a interroge conjointement les professionnels de ces structures d’accueil et ceux de la pedopsychiatrie. Cette convergence de preoccupations pour ces enfants a permis l’elaboration d’un travail conjoint entre les MAPE de l’AVVEJ et l’unite de pedopsychiatrie perinatale de l’EPS Erasme dans le but d’amener ces dyades vers le soin psychique et d’evaluer le developpement des bebes. Patients et methode Le cadre a ete defini par une convention qui prevoit 3 consultations pour ces dyades dont une consultation d’evaluation du developpement du bebe par le Brunet-Lezine Revise. Resultats L’etude a permis de souligner le niveau de developpement inferieur a la moyenne de ces enfants mais aussi les differents avantages de la mise en place de ce parcours pour ces dyades. Conclusion Ces resultats confirment la necessite de poursuivre ce travail conjoint et ouvre la voie a une reflexion plus specifique sur la facon de soutenir de maniere integree le developpement de ces bebes.

International audience; Humor has a positive influence on learning in adults and school-aged children (1), yet few studies investigated the effect of humor on learning in infants. Our team was the first to show an influence of humor on social learning in infants as young as 18 months in a tool use context (2). In this earlier study, 64 infants had to use a rake to retrieve an out-of-reach toy after a demonstration of its use by an experimenter. The demonstration was done either in a humorous or in a neutral way. Our team found that 94% of the infants who laughed when exposed to a humorous demonstration then reproduced the target action compared to only 20% of infants who did not laugh or were exposed to the neutral demonstration. These results may be driven by different factors such as positive emotions, a surprise effect or the intensity of the emotions as measured by physiological parameters. The first aim of the current study was to understand the physiological/emotional mechanisms involved in the link between humour and learning by using a mutlidimensional approach. The second aim was to assess the generalizability of the previous findings on a larger age group (120 infants), aged between 14 and 22 months. In addition to the behavioral analysis, we measured several variables: both cardiovascular data by means of a wristband (to measure the intensity of emotions in a non invasive way); an automatic facial expression analysis; and a temperament measure by means of the ECBQ questionnaire, in order to investigate inter-individual differences in infants’ reactions to a humorous demonstration (3). Through this study, we investigated (a) the potential relationship between emotional intensity and learning in a humorous context, (b) whether infants under 18 months of age can learn better with humor, and (c) at what age infants consider our humorous demonstration to be funny. Our preliminary analyses of the physiological data seem to show no differences in infants’ heart rates both between (1) the neutral and the humorous demonstrations, and (2) between laughing, smiling and neutral infants. Therefore, we found no effect of the intensity of emotions on learning (see figure 1). Infants seemed to learn better when they were exposed to a humorous demonstration, as shown on figure 2. Furthermore, infants who smiled or laughed during the demonstration imitated more than non-laughing infants exposed to a neutral or humorous demonstration (see figure 3). The perception of the specific type of humor used in our study (measured by the laughing reaction) develops around 17 months of age. Surprisingly, our temperament questionnaire analysis suggested that laughing infants had more difficulty than others in regulating their negative emotions (figure 4). Further analysis of the cardiac signal are ongoing, to focus on the shape of the cardiac waves, correlated with facial expression analysis. These additional analysis seek to evaluate the effect of other positive emotions such as joy and surprise, both known to have a positive influence on learning in adults (4; 5).

International audience; From birth, newborns show a preference for faces talking a native language compared to silent faces. The present study addresses two questions that remained unanswered by previous research: (a) Does the familiarity with the language play a role in this process and (b) Are all the linguistic and paralinguistic cues necessary in this case? Experiment 1 extended newborns' preference for native speakers to non-native ones. Given that fetuses and newborns are sensitive to the prosodic characteristics of speech, Experiments 2 and 3 presented faces talking native and nonnative languages with the speech stream being low-pass filtered. Results showed that newborns preferred looking at a person who talked to them even when only the prosodic cues were provided for both languages. Nonetheless, a familiarity preference for the previously talking face is observed in the "normal speech" condition (i.e., Experiment 1) and a novelty preference in the "filtered speech" condition (Experiments 2 and 3). This asymmetry reveals that newborns process these two types of stimuli differently and that they may already be sensitive to a mismatch between the articulatory movements of the face and the corresponding speech sounds.

International audience; Speech researchers have long been interested in how auditory and visual speech signals are integrated, and recent work has revived interest in the role of speech production with respect to this process. Here we discuss these issues from a developmental perspective. Because speech perception abilities typically outstrip speech production abilities in infancy and childhood, it is unclear how speech-like movements could influence audiovisual speech perception in development. While work on this question is still in its preliminary stages, there is nevertheless increasing evidence that sensorimotor processes (defined here as any motor or proprioceptive process related to orofacial movements) affect developmental audiovisual speech processing. We suggest three areas on which to focus in future research: i) the relation between audiovisual speech perception and sensorimotor processes at birth, ii) the pathways through which sensorimotor processes interact with audiovisual speech processing in infancy, and iii) developmental change in sensorimotor pathways as speech production emerges in childhood.

Background: Distrust of COVID-19 vaccines may hamper vaccination campaigns. We focused on the cognitive determinants of intentions to get vaccinated against COVID-19. We were interested in (i) the effects of stress, and (ii) the effects of self-protection systems on attitudes and intentions to get vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine. Methods: We conducted an online observational study with 203 French students (MAge = 19, SDAge = 2.52, Women = 173), in which we measured, through self-reported questionnaires, their perceived stress and vulnerability to disease, belief in a dangerous world, pandemic-related stressors living conditions, attitudes and intentions to get vaccinated, and confidence in the government's management of COVID-19. We conducted two multiple linear mediation analyses.Results: Participants who reported higher trust in the government and who reported higher stress levels were more likely to have positive attitudes toward the COVID-19 vaccine, although both these influences seem to be –at least partially - independent. Conclusions: The factor that most robustly predicted both attitudes and intentions to vaccinate was confidence in the information provided by the government and its ability to manage the pandemic in general. Our analyses suggest the existence of two profiles of people likely to have positive attitudes toward vaccination: those who trust the government and are not stressed by vaccination, and those who do not trust the government but would get vaccinated to reduce their stress. We discuss how to improve the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccine policies through communication.

International audience; Most children move rhythmically when they are focused on a task, whereas they are expected to remain still. Yet, Dynamic Attention Theory provides a theoretical framework to support the hypothesis that producing a spontaneous motor tempo can improve attentional performance. We therefore developed an experimental procedure designed to test this effect in the ecological context of classroom work: 64 8-year-old children participated in a 3-session, whole-class experiment. Each session began with a preliminary movement phase (spontaneous tempo with the hand or with the head or without movement). Then, in a second phase, the children completed one of three versions of the d2 attentional test. Our results showed that only the spontaneous tempo with hand condition significantly improved attentional performance. This protocol shows that it is possible to adapt teaching practices to allow children to mobilize their attention through these movements without disrupting classroom functioning.

In Western cultures, humans tend to use a specific kind of speech when talking to their pets, characterised, from an acoustical point of view, by elevated pitch and greater pitch modulation. Pet-directed speech (PDS), which has been mainly studied in dogs, shares some acoustic features with infant-directed speech (IDS), used when talking to young children. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that adult humans also modify characteristics of their voice when talking to a cat. We compared acoustic parameters of speech directed to cats (CDS) and speech directed to adult humans (ADS). In a first experiment, we compared ADS and CDS utterances of male and female participants, addressing cats through video recordings, under controlled laboratory conditions. Both men and women used a higher pitch (mean fundamental frequency, or mean F0) in CDS vs. ADS. The second experiment was conducted under conditions allowing direct cat-human interactions, in a cohort of women. Once again, mean F0 was significantly higher in CDS vs. ADS. Overall, these data confirm our hypothesis that humans change the way they speak when addressing a cat, mainly by increasing the pitch of their voice. Further research is needed to fully investigate specificities of this speech.

International audience; The aim of this study is to investigate how ostensive cues modify infants' visual attention to task demonstration, and the extent to which this enhances the performance in an imitative learning task. We hypothesized that ostensive cues would help orient infants' attention toward relevant parts of the demonstration. We investigated the looking behavior of 41 10-month-old infants while observing an adult demonstrating a novel target action after having either provided ostensive cues or not. Infants' looking behavior was measured using an eye tracker. Two areas of interest were analyzed: the targeted object and the adult's face. Infants' performance after demonstration was also analyzed. The results show that infants' looking behavior varied across groups. When ostensive cues were not provided, infants looked mainly at the experimenter's face. However, when ostensive cues were provided, infants oriented their attention toward the targeted object. These results suggest that ostensive cues help infants orient their attention toward task-relevant parts of the scene. Surprisingly, infants in the non-ostensive group improved their performance faster after demonstration than infants in the ostensive group. These results are discussed in terms of a video effect and dissociation between separate cognitive systems for social and non-social cognition.

International audience; à venir

International audience; Partner choice in animals has evolved under the effects of intra- and inter-sexual selection. Even if a consensus between females is often observed towards some males, certain females can drastically change their mating decision. Different conditions such as early learning, mate-choice copying, prior experience or subtle intrinsic factors can interfere with the decision. One of them is body condition of the females at the time of choosing. In this experiment, the flight feathers of female canaries Serinus canaria were cut, thus decreasing their flight ability. After a short period in a flight room, two types of artificial songs containing different tempi of the test 'A' phrase (16 vs. 8 syllables per second) were played to these females. It is known that only A phrases with a high tempo provoke a high level of sexual response in females. Female preference was evaluated by counting the number of Copulation Solicitation Displays (CSDs). The results show that, in both (normal and physically reduced) conditions, females prefer songs containing an A16 phrase. However, the strength of this preference is lower in females with compromised body condition than in females from the control group, suggesting a decreased choosiness in the poor body condition females.

International audience; Mistrust in COVID-19 vaccines may hinder vaccination campaigns. We looked at cognitive determinants of vaccination intentions against COVID-19. We were interested in (i) the effects of stress and (ii) the effects of self-protection systems on attitudes and intentions to get COVID-19 vaccines. We conducted an online observational pilot study with 203 participants and used self-report questionnaires to assess perceived stress and vulnerability to disease, beliefs about a dangerous world, pandemic-related stressors, living conditions, attitudes and intentions toward the vaccines and trust in government management of the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants reporting high levels of trust in government and high levels of stress were more likely to have positive attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines, although these two effects are at least partially independent of each other. We discuss how to improve the communication around COVID-19 vaccine policies.

Aim This review identifies interventions involving the fathers of preterm infants that have been tested in neonatal intensive care units (NICU). It examines their effects on the fathers and infants and highlights any differences between fathers and mothers who took part in the same interventions. Methods A systematic search was performed in English from 1995 to 1 September 2020, using the CINAHL, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Embase, PubMed and PsycINFO databases. We examined 14 peer‐reviewed studies that investigated NICU interventions involving 478 fathers, whose 511 infants were born before 37 weeks of gestation. These included empirical studies with clinical outcomes. Results Studies on fathers' interventions in NICUs were limited and mainly restricted to basic skin‐to‐skin contact or tactile interventions. The interventions had similar general positive effects on mothers and fathers when it came to infant physiological and behavioural reactions. There was also evidence of a positive effect on the fathers, including their mental health. Conclusion Including fathers as active partners in the care of their preterm newborn infants produced good outcomes for both of them. Further research is needed to develop new, multimodal and interactive interventions that provide fathers with positive contact with their preterm infants.

In a society where pet companions have become part of the family circle, many humans consider their non-human companions as family members and sometimes even as their babies. In order to apprehend the mechanisms of such modern interspecific relationships, research in the field must follow that trend. The primary aim of this dissertation was to improve and expand the existing knowledge on the ethology of domestic cats (Felis catus). We sought to investigate cats’ behavioural responses in order to better understand their needs in a human-driven environment. The data presented focus on interspecific human-cat communication. In order to approach both sides of the human-cat dyad, we have investigated how human understand and decipher signals emitted by cats and vice versa. Our studies focused on vocal and visual communication signals. We have shown that humans use a specific speech register to address to their feline companions, characterized by a higher pitch. This pitch could be viewed as Cat-directed speech as opposed to Adult-directed speech, classically addressed to other humans. Cats are more responsive to this type of speech when it is emitted by their own human companion but not by a stranger. In the third part of our studies, we report that cats preferentially respond to bimodal (visual and vocal) or visual communication signals emitted by humans, as compared to vocal unimodal signals. Finally, we found that humans get a better understanding of cats’ bimodal and visual cues than vocal cues. Consequently, even though vocal signals are commonly used in the course of interspecific interactions between cats and humans, it does not seem fully effective to convey a clear signal from human to cat nor from cat to human. Our results are integrated and discussed in the context of attachment mechanisms, anthropomorphic considerations, and animal welfare.; Dans une société où les animaux compagnons sont intégrés au cercle familial, beaucoup d’humains les considèrent comme des membres de la famille à part entière. La recherche doit suivre cette tendance et s’attacher à appréhender les mécanismes de relations qui se construisent entre différentes espèces amenées à cohabiter. L’objectif de cette thèse est d’enrichir et d’approfondir les connaissances scientifiques sur l’éthologie du chat compagnon (Felis catus), afin de mieux appréhender ses besoins et réponses comportementales, au sein d’un environnement souvent imposé par l’humain. Les travaux restitués sont principalement centrés sur la communication interspécifique entre l’humain et le chat. Soucieux d’explorer aussi bien la perspective de l’humain que celle du chat, nous avons étudié la façon dont chacun s’exprime et décode les messages de l’autre. Ainsi, nous nous sommes intéressés à la communication vocale et visuelle entre ces deux espèces différentes qui partagent un même milieu - et doivent apprendre à communiquer efficacement pour cohabiter sereinement. Nos études ont mis en évidence que les humains utilisaient un discours spécifique pour s’adresser à leur compagnons félins, caractérisé par l’utilisation d’une voix plus aiguë. Nous avons également rapporté que les chats étaient plus attentifs à ce type de discours, mais seulement lorsqu’il était prononcé par leur compagnon humain et non par un étranger. Dans une troisième étude, nous avons observé que les chats venaient plus volontiers au contact d’un humain peu familier si celui-ci proposait un contact bimodal ou visuel, plutôt que vocal. Enfin, nous avons vu que les humains comprenaient mieux les chats dans leurs expressions bimodales et visuelles que vocales. Ainsi, bien que communément utilisée par chaque émetteur de cette communication interspécifique, la modalité vocale ne semble pas être suffisante pour la transmission et la réception d’un signal clair. Ces résultats sont discutés à la lumière des notions d’attachement, d’anthropomorphisme et de bien-être animal.

International audience

Most research on Animal-Assisted Interventions (AAI) has focused on validating the benefits of this practice for human health, excluding the potential negative impact of this work for the dogs involved. Within several research addressing the characteristics of AAI, the representations of the handlers on their practice and the well-being of their dog as well as a field study, we studied the risk factors for the well-being of dogs in animal mediation. The first chapter shows that AAI is a heterogeneous practice as an interspecific approach complementary to other treatments, but that it is possible to make a first categorization between a specialization of care professionals and a profession in its own right. The second chapter suggests a central place for the handler in the selection and well-being of his dog. Moreover, the questioning of the handlers underlines the need to consider the well-being of the dogs in AAI through the working environment, the interactions with the beneficiaries and the handler himself. The third chapter points out the need to pay particular attention to the interactions between the dogs and the beneficiaries but also with the handler during the sessions. Future studies are needed to investigate the risk factors for the well-being of dogs in AAI by adopting new interdisciplinary and collaborative methodologies.; La majorité des recherches sur la médiation animale se sont concentrées sur la validation des bénéfices de cette pratique pour la santé humaine en excluant le potentiel impact négatif de ce travail pour les chiens impliqués. Au sein de plusieurs recherches abordant les caractéristiques de la médiation animale, les représentations des intervenants sur leur pratique et le bien-être de leur chien ainsi qu’une étude de terrain, nous avons étudié les facteurs de risque pour le bien-être des chiens en médiation animale. Le premier chapitre montre que la médiation animale est une pratique hétérogène en tant qu’approche interspécifique complémentaire à d’autres prises en charge, mais qu’il est possible d’en faire une première catégorisation entre une spécialisation de professionnels du soin et une profession à part entière. Le deuxième chapitre suggère une place centrale de l’intervenant dans la sélection et le bien-être de son chien. En outre, l’interrogation des intervenants souligne la nécessité d’une prise en compte du bien-être des chiens en médiation animale à travers : l’environnement de travail, les interactions avec les bénéficiaires et l’intervenant lui-même. Le troisième chapitre pointe la nécessité d’une attention particulière sur les interactions entre les chiens et les bénéficiaires mais aussi avec l’intervenant lors des séances de médiation animale. De futures études sont nécessaires pour étudier les facteurs de risque pour le bien-être des chien en médiation animale en adoptant de nouvelles méthodologies interdisciplinaires et collaboratives.

International audience; Parrots belong to the handful of animal species capable of vocal production learning. They are considered to be open-ended learners with complex and variable vocalizations. It is not known, however, to what extent their repertoires are shared among individuals within a group or between vocally isolated individuals or groups. In study 1, we mapped the repertoire of four captive African gray parrots (Psittacus erithacus) using a combination of three acoustic analyses. In study 2, we compared the repertoire of two female African gray parrots from two different laboratories who had never been in vocal contact with each other or any member of the other parrot’s social group. Results of study 1 showed a relatively large agreement between all three methods used to analyze the vocalizations. Almost three quarters (72.8%) of categories determined by visual-acoustic analysis were confirmed by at least one of the two computer-aided methods used, i.e., by spectrographic cross-correlation and/or a multiparametric statistical method. In study 2, we found a relatively large proportion of calls shared between the repertoires of the two gray parrot subjects. Over half and over a fourth of calls produced by parrots with the smaller and the larger repertoire, respectively, were shared between the two. No previous study identified such a large proportion of intergroup shared calls within this parrot species. It seems that some calls tend to reappear in vocally isolated groups based on inherited predispositions, similarly as has been documented in songbirds.

In this thesis, we developed a pluridisciplinary approach to compare interactions between a biological agent and a robot to interactions between two conspecific individualsin two highly social species: the human and the Zebra Finch (Taeniopygia guttata). We conducted three studies: with 3-to-6 years old typically developing (TD) children, 4-to-8 years old children with mild Austim Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and zebra finches from 35 to 100 days post hatch. In children, we evaluated vocabulary learning (for TD children only), knowledge on body parts and emotions and the tendency to help a demonstrator (an unfamiliar adult or the humanoid NAO robot feminized (human voice) as NAOMIE. We found similar results regardless the demonstrator type, in both TD children and ASD children which suggest that the NAO robot can be successfully used to study social behaviours of young children. For our experiments with zebra finches, we developed MANDABOT, an interactive robot finch. We compared song imitation in two groups of young zebra finches, whereas they were exposed to MANDABOT or to an unfamiliar adult male during their sensitive period for song learning. We found that both groups of zebra finches produced high imitations of songs models which suggest that MANDABOT can be an efficient tutor for song learning. Our results allowed us to validate experimental protocols using an innovative and promising tool in developemental psychology, psychomotricity and ethology: social robotics.; Cette thèse pluridisciplinaire avait pour but de comparer les interactions agent biologique-robot à celles entre deux agents biologiques de la même espèce chez de jeunes individus de deux espèces hautement sociales : l’humain et une espèce d’oiseau, le Diamant Mandarin (Taeniopygia guttata). Trois populations ont été testées : des enfants au développement typique (DT) âgés de 3 à 6 ans, des enfants présentant un Trouble du Spectre Autistique (TSA) léger âgés de 4 à 8 ans et des diamants mandarins âgés de 35 à 100 jours. Chez les enfants, nous avons comparé l’apprentissage de vocabulaire (uniquement pour le groupe DT), la connaissance des parties du corps et des émotions ainsi que la tendance à aider selon que la démonstratrice était une adulte non familière ou le robot humanoïde NAO féminisé (voix humaine) et renommé NAOMIE. Nos résultats montrent que les scores des enfants (DT et TSA) étaient comparables quelle que soit la démonstratrice, suggérant que le robot NAO peut être utilisé en situation d’interaction sociale auprès de jeunes enfants. Pour réaliser nos expériences avec les diamants mandarins, nous avons développé un robot-diamant mandarin interactif : MANDABOT. Nous avons comparé l’apprentissage du chant selon que les jeunes avaient été élevés en présence d’un mâle adulte non familier ou de MANDABOT. Nous avons trouvé que l’imitation des chants produits par les tuteurs était aussi élevée dans les deux groupes suggérant que MANDABOT peut être utilisé comme tuteur de chant. Nos trois études nous ont permis de valider des protocoles en utilisant une approche expérimentale innovante et prometteuse en psychologie du développement, en psychomotricité et en éthologie : la robotique sociale.

International audience; Humour seems to have positive effects both socially and cognitively. Indeed, it reduces stress, improves social cohesion between individuals and has positive effects on learning in adults. In infants, we conducted a study that investigated the effect of humour on learning in a social learning context and showed that at 18 months of age, 94% of infants who laughed during a humorous demonstration of a tool use, reproduced the target action compared to only 30% of infants who did not laugh or when the demonstration was not humorous. The aim of the current study was twofold: (1) replicate this previous study with a large age range and (2) examine the age at which the understanding of humour appears during development, given that some authors consider that infants perceive humour as early as their first laughter around 5 months, while others argue that humour appears as soon as infants display pretend play behaviours around 18 months. In order to test these questions, we repeated our previous study with 70 infants aged between 14 to 22 months, in addition to a pretend play test. Our preliminary results suggest that the perception of humour appears around 18 months of age but does not seem to be correlated with pretend play. In addition, infants seem to learn better when they are exposed to a humorous demonstration regardless of whether they laugh or not. These results raise questions about the possible factors involved in humour and can explain the effect observed, namely incongruity and surprise.

Birdsong learning has been consolidated as the model system of choice for exploring the biological substrates of vocal learning. In the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata), only males sing and they develop their song during a sensitive period in early life. Different experimental procedures have been used in the laboratory to train a young finch to learn a song. So far, the best method to achieve a faithful imitation is to keep a young bird singly with an adult male. Here, we present the different characteristics of a robotic zebra finch that was developed with the goal to be used as a song tutor. The robot is morphologically similar to a life-sized finch: it can produce movements and sounds contingently to the behaviours of a live bird. We present preliminary results on song imitation, and other possible applications beyond the scope of developmental song learning.

International audience; The past decade has witnessed a rapid increase in the use of screen media in families, and infants are exposed to screens at younger ages than ever before. The objective of this review is twofold: (1) to understand the correlates and demographic factors determining exposure to screens, including interactive screens, when available, and (2) to study the effects of watching screens and using touchscreens on cognitive development, during the first 3 years of life. We argue that the effects of screen viewing depend mostly on contextual aspects of the viewing rather than on the quantity of viewing. That context includes the behavior of adult caregivers during viewing, the watched content in relation to the child's age, the interactivity of the screen and whether the screen is in the background or not. Depending on the context, screen viewing can have positive, neutral or negative effects on infants' cognition.

Ce chapitre se focalise sur le développement de l’humour, sa perception et sa production pendant les premières années de vie ainsi que ses fonctions. Il fait le constat que de nombreux enseignants utilisent depuis longtemps diverses formes d’humour en classe. Les effets variés de cet usage sont présentés, tels que le renforcement du lien enseignant-élève, l’amélioration du climat éducationnel et l’amélioration des apprentissages et des mécanismes associés.

International audience

International audience

International audience

Traffic noise leads to vocal learning deficits in young songbirds, the primary model for speech development in humans., Noise pollution has been linked to learning and language deficits in children, but the causal mechanisms connecting noise to cognitive deficiencies remain unclear because experimental models are lacking. Here, we investigated the effects of noise on birdsong learning, the primary animal model for vocal learning and speech development in humans. We found that traffic noise exposure retarded vocal development and led to learning inaccuracies. In addition, noise suppressed immune function during the sensitive learning period, indicating that it is a potent stressor for birds, which is likely to compromise their cognitive functions. Our results provide important insights into the consequences of noise pollution and pave the way for future studies using birdsong as an experimental model for the investigation of noise-induced learning impairments.

International audience; Few studies have been carried out on emerging adults' friendships and on their developmental roots. Research suggests that in adolescence, both attachment to parents and attachment to peers play a role in future socio-emotional development. The aim of the present study was to compare attachment in these two types of relationships in adolescence according to gender and test whether they respectively predicted the perception of best friendship in early adulthood. A sample of 83 participants (49 girls) was seen in early adolescence (M = 13.66 years, SD = 0.64) and 7 years later (mean age = 21.15 years, SD = 0.83). At T1, participants completed the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment, which measures attachment using three subscales (communication, alienation and trust) and one global security score. At T2, they completed the McGill Friendship Questionnaire. Results show that in adolescence, boys report higher security with parents compared to peers (mainly due to better communication), unlike girls who obtain higher scores with peers. Longitudinal findings reveal that alienation in the relation with parents is what best predicts friendship quality in early adulthood. These findings underline the specific internal working models at play in socio-emotional development and the way gender differences evolve from adolescence to early adulthood. Highlights: Contrary to female adolescents, males reported higher security with parents compared to peers (mainly due to better communication). Female adolescents reported better communication with peers than males. No gender difference in friendship quality in emerging adulthood was found. Results suggest that the progressive broadening of attachment from parents to peers occurs earlier for girls than for boys. Alienation in the relation with parents in early adolescence predicts friendship quality in early adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vocal communication is essential for social interactions in many animal species. For this purpose, an animal has to perceive vocal signals of conspecifics and is often also required to discriminate conspecifics. The capacity to discriminate conspecifics is particularly important in social species in which individuals interact repeatedly. In addition, auditory perception of self plays an important role for vocal learners. A vocal learner has to memorise vocalisations of conspecifics and to subsequently modify its own vocalisations in order to match the memorised vocalisations. Here, we investigated auditory perception of self and others in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata), a highly gregarious songbird species and vocal learner. We used laboratory colonies in which founder males had been previously trained to produce the same song type. This resulted in artificial dialects in the song of founders and their offspring. We investigated whether those birds would be able to discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics based on song. Furthermore, we examined whether they would classify their own song as familiar or unfamiliar. We found that birds were able to discriminate between songs of familiar versus unfamiliar conspecifics, despite the fact that all songs were imitations of the same song type. This suggests that such discrimination is possible even based on songs with a high acoustic similarity. None of the subjects classified their own song as unfamiliar. Three out of eight males classified their own song as familiar. Thus zebra finches might recognise their own song. Further experiments are needed to confirm such self-recognition.

Social learning is an important ability for the adaptation of individuals to their environment. To ensure that they are learning from trustworthy information, individuals need to know how to select a good demonstrator. Literature shows that learners use different social criteria to select a good model (such as age, sex or familiarity), and that they tend to learn more from those who belong to the same social group as them. However, there is still currently little knowledge about the role of the demonstrator in social categorization and learning, which is the point of interest of our study. We tried to test the role of the model’s species in this context, by comparing the interspecific learning of two models: the human model (4-year-old children and adults) and the bird model (cockatiels). We used mutual exclusivity, which is the propensity to attribute a unique function to a tool, as a methodological tool to study learning, and we also used human, bird and dog demonstrations on a video support to show different tools’ function. The results showed mutual exclusivity in 4-year-old children when they watched live demonstrations, which replicated Peto’s et al. study (2018). The children who watched video demonstrations did not show that phenomenon, and similarly for the human adults and cockatiels. Thus, this study confirmed the results of Peto et al. (2018), and furthermore gave methodological knowledge on mutual exclusivity and interspecific learning in human and bird models.; L’apprentissage social est une capacité importante pour l’adaptation des individus à leur environnement. Pour assurer l’apprentissage d’informations fiables, les individus doivent savoir sélectionner un bon démonstrateur. La littérature montre que les apprenants utilisent différents critères sociaux pour sélectionner un bon modèle (comme l’âge, le sexe ou la familiarité), et qu’ils ont tendance à apprendre plus de ceux qui appartiennent au même groupe social qu’eux. Cependant, il y a encore peu de connaissances à l’heure actuelle sur le rôle que joue l’espèce du démonstrateur dans la catégorisation et l’apprentissage social, ce qui va être l’intérêt de notre étude. Nous avons cherché à tester le rôle de l’espèce du modèle dans ce contexte, et ce en comparant l’apprentissage interspécifique de deux modèles : le modèle humain (enfants de 4 ans et adultes) et le modèle oiseau (calopsittes élégantes). Nous avons pour cela utilisé l’exclusivité mutuelle, qui est la tendance à attribuer une fonction unique à un outil, comme outil méthodologique pour étudier l’apprentissage, ainsi que des démonstrations de modèles humain, oiseau ou chien par support vidéo pour montrer la fonction de différents outils. Les résultats ont montré de l’exclusivité mutuelle chez les enfants de 4 ans lorsqu’ils regardaient des démonstrations en live, répliquant ainsi l’étude Peto et al. (2018). Les enfants ayant visionné des démonstrations par vidéo n’ont pas montré ce phénomène, et il en est de même pour les humains adultes et les calopsittes. Cette étude a ainsi permis de confirmer les résultats de l’étude de Peto et al. (2018), et a de plus apporté des connaissances méthodologiques sur l’exclusivité mutuelle et l’apprentissage interspécifique chez des modèles humains et oiseaux.

International audience

International audience

International audience; Birdsong is culturally transmitted, and geographical variations of song have been found in several songbird species. There is evidence that such dialects contribute to reproductive isolation through variation in female preference. In the wild, there is no report of consistent dialects in populations of zebra finches. However, under laboratory conditions, we were able to artificially create different colony-wide song dialects. In this species, song plays a crucial role in mate choice and the importance of both subadult and adult song experience in shaping song preferences has been well documented. Therefore, we expected females to prefer songs corresponding to their colony's dialect. We measured this preference using an operant test: females could either trigger a song corresponding to their Colony Song Type (CST) sang by an unfamiliar individual, or another conspecific song, corresponding to a Non-Colony Song Type (N-CST). Most females preferred the CST over the N-CST, supporting the idea that zebra finch females exhibit a preference for songs similar to their colony's song. It also reveals that song dialects matter to female zebra finches. It has been proposed that song could be used as an affiliative signal in highly social species. Therefore, preferring the colony dialect could be the consequence of a sexual preference, but also of a social preference. We discuss the potential role of song dialects in the context of social learning.

International audience

Preterm infants’ behavioral state and physiological parameters are affected by environmental noise and adult voices. Only a handful of studies have explored the effects of direct maternal vocal communication on preterm infants’ autonomous nervous system responses. Furthermore, to our knowledge, no study to date has investigated the effect of the father’s voice on preterm infant’s behaviors and physiological parameters. This study evaluated the effects of both mothers’ and fathers’ infant-directed speech on preterm infants’ behavioral states. Fourteen stable, premature infants serving as their own controls were videotaped while their mother and father were speaking to them for 5 min over 2 consecutive days. Infants’ behavioral states and state lability were coded for each voice presentation (father and mother), in the three different conditions, before, during, and after the intervention. Present results show an interaction between vocal intervention and infant behavioral state. Both maternal and paternal speech modified infant behavioral state, but no significant difference in the behavioral state distribution was observed between mother’s and father’s voice presentation. Infants spent more time in a quiet alert state when they heard both voices compared to no vocalization baseline. These findings indicate the importance of both the fathers’ and the mothers’ voice for preterm infants. The parental vocal intervention has an awakening effect. Further studies are needed to better identify the benefits for preterm infants of a relational care approach.

The present study investigated how linguistic group membership influences prosocial behaviors, namely helpfulness and cooperation, in preschool children. Whilst research indicates that children preferentially direct their prosocial behavior towards members of their own groups, the influence of perceived linguistic group membership on actual helpfulness and cooperation has not been investigated. We presented an experimenter to 4- and 5-year-olds either as a foreigner, who did not speak the local language or as a native person. Children were then given the opportunity to help or cooperate with this experimenter in a series of nonverbal playful tasks. Whilst 4-year-olds helped and cooperated equally with the foreign and the native experimenter, 5-year-olds required significantly more cues and prompts in order to help or cooperate in the foreign condition. We also found that children were overall more reluctant to respond prosocially in the cooperation tasks than in the helping tasks. We tested children in two European countries (France and Hungary) and found the same pattern of responses in the two locations, suggesting that our findings are not specific to the local culture. Our results extend the findings of earlier research that showed selectivity according to the language spoken by the partner for sharing and imitation. Studies that looked at helpfulness or cooperation used the minimal group paradigm to induce group membership (based on arbitrary cues) and used indirect measures of prosociality, such as different forms of reasoning about the partner. In our study, we used language, a natural cue for group membership (versus arbitrary cues or cues based on social conventions) and directly observed children’s helpful and cooperative behaviors toward the experimenter. Our results also confirm previous results indicating that with age, children become selective in their prosocial behaviors as they acquire new means of social evaluation and categorization. We conclude that the language associated with a potential social partner is not only a cue for affiliation and shared knowledge but also a cue mediating children’s prosocial acts.

International audience; Previous studies evidenced that already from birth, newborns can perceive differences between a direct versus an averted gaze in faces both presented in static and interactive situations. It has been hypothesized that this early sensitivity would rely on modifications of the location of the iris (i.e. the darker part of the eye) in the sclera (i.e. the white part), or that it would be an outcome of newborns’ preference for configurations of faces with the eye region being more contrasted. One question still remains: What happens when the position of the iris is not modified in the sclera, but the look is ‘faraway’, that is when the gaze is toward the newborns’ face but above his or her own eyes? In the present study, we tested the influence of a direct versus a faraway gaze (i.e., two gazes that only differed slightly in the position of the iris on the vertical axis and not on the horizontal axis) on newborns’ face recognition. The procedure was identical to that used in previous studies: using a familiarization-test procedure, we familiarized two groups of newborns (N = 32) with videos of different talking faces that were presented with either a direct or a faraway gaze. Newborns were then tested with photographs of the face seen previously and of a new one. Results evidenced that newborns looked longer at the familiar face, but only in the direct gaze condition. These results suggest that, already from birth, infants can perceive slight differences of gazes when someone is addressing to them.

International audience; Romance constitutes a central experience in adolescence, which can take several forms including (a) serious romance with a steady partner, (b) casual and short-lived dating, and (c) pending experiences of romantic thoughts and attempts. Using a three-way longitudinal design, the present study examined the gender differences and developmental changes of these romantic experiences, and their cross-lagged associations with identity processes, throughout one year in late adolescence. 389 students (63% girls) filled out questionnaires about their romantic experiences and identity processes. Girls reported more serious romance than did boys, who reported more casual dating and pending experiences. Serious romance increased over the year for both genders, whereas casual dating and pending experiences continued to rise only for boys. The cross-lagged model highlighted that serious romantic experience positively predicted identity commitments and exploration in depth, whereas identity exploration in breadth positively predicted casual dating. This pattern was stable over the three time-points and across gender and age groups. Overall, this study invites consideration of more diverse romantic experiences than those associated with tangible involvement. We discuss the contribution of romantic experiences to the identity dynamic

International audience

International audience; Social influences on vocal development of young birds have been widely studied in oscine songbirds who learn to sing by vocal imitation of conspecifics, mainly male adults. In contrast, vocal development of non-vocal learners such as Galliformes is considered as being under strong genetic influence and independent of the social environment. In this study, we investigated the role of the mother on the vocal development of young Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica). We compared the vocal development of mothered and non-mothered chicks during the first 21 days of life. We analysed the structural changes of two vocalisations: a) the rally call, emitted during long-distance communication and in stressful situations, b) the contact call, emitted during short-distance communication when chicks are in visual and/or auditory contact with congeners. We showed that temporal and spectral structures of the two types of calls changed during development and differed between mothered and nonmothered chicks. These results demonstrate that maternal presence influences the vocal development of the young in the Japanese quail. Even if the adaptive value of such changes was not assessed, these results highlight that plasticity of vocalisations in species considered as non-vocal learners has been underestimated.

Aim Little is known about infant-directed speech addressed to preterm infants. The current study investigated the association between changes in preterm infant behavioural states and acoustical qualities of both maternal and paternal infant-directed speech. Methods The mothers and fathers of 11 preterm infants participated in the study. Parents in turn were asked to talk freely to their infant over a 5-minute period. A total of 72 audio sequences were selected and analysed as a function of the behavioural states. Results Acoustic analysis showed that the vocal qualities of both fathers' and mothers' speech were influenced by infant behaviour. Parental infant-directed speech was characterised by higher loudness and spectral related parameters when preterm infants were sleeping, or transiting from one state to another, than when they were awake. Furthermore, loudness and spectral flux were higher in maternal speech than in paternal speech and fathers used higher pitch, jitter and shimmer when they saw their preterm infant in an awake state, demonstrating that alertness in infants modulates the father's voice. Conclusion More research is needed to know whether other social partners' vocal qualities may also be related to infant behavioural state as such findings would have implications for clinical practice.

EnglishMusicality (i.e. the set of cognitive abilities associated with music perception, appreciation and production) is widely shared among humans. Some researchers have suggested that it may have evolved because of some implications on survival and/or reproduction. Thus, the biological roots of musicality in human and non-human species have been studied in the literature, suggesting potential adaptive functions such as attractiveness as a partner for reproduction, mother-infant communication and social cohesion. In this comparative review, we present studies on musicality both in human and in non-human species in each of the aforementioned adaptive functions. We then discuss convergent evolution in some species and address the question of innateness of musical abilities. francaisLa musicalite (i.e. l’ensemble des capacites associees a la perception, a l’appreciation et la production musicale) est largement repandue chez notre espece. Selon certains chercheurs, elle aurait evolue car elle favoriserait la survie et/ou la reproduction. Ainsi, les origines biologiques de la musicalite ont ete etudiees dans la litterature, chez l’espece humaine mais aussi chez d’autres especes. Les etudes suggerent des fonctions adaptatives, dont l’attractivite en tant que partenaire de reproduction, la communication mere-bebe, ou encore la cohesion des groupes sociaux. Dans cette revue comparative, nous presenterons les donnees existantes sur la musicalite chez les especes humaine et non-humaines pour chacune des fonctions evoquees ci-dessus. Nous discuterons ensuite la convergence evolutive de la musicalite chez certaines especes ainsi que son origine biologique.