Francesca Simion - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
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Papers by Francesca Simion
Many experimental studies have been carried out to demonstrate that a multiccmponent complex skil... more Many experimental studies have been carried out to demonstrate that a multiccmponent complex skill as reading can be described through a series of processing stages (LaBerge & Jay Samuels, 1974). A visual word activates different codes: visual, phonological, semantic and some operations take place within each code. Consequently reading disabilities could be due either to the inability to deal with the different internal codes produced by a word (Posner, 1978; Snowling, 1980) or to the difficulties to operate within each code. While theories differ about the relationship between letter processing and word processing, almost all acknowledge that children must identify and discriminate among letters in order to read fluently (Gibson, 1969). Posner (1978) reviewed some studies to show that separable codes are activated when a visual word is presented. These include the physical (visual) and the phonetic codes found for individual letters. Thus many of the question to which the reading process has been subjected can benefit from studies on matching of letters. To trace the nature of the codes activated and the time course of the efficiency of letter processing could help reading researchers to a better understanding of the early letter processing skills. The general aim of the present study is to define the codes upon which different operations take place and to isolate the stages of visual information processing both with alphanumeric and nonalphanumeric material.
Developmental Science, Mar 21, 2013
Perception of mechanical (i.e. physical) causality, in terms of a cause-effect relationship betwe... more Perception of mechanical (i.e. physical) causality, in terms of a cause-effect relationship between two motion events, appears to be a powerful mechanism in our daily experience. In spite of a growing interest in the earliest causal representations, the role of experience in the origin of this sensitivity is still a matter of dispute. Here, we asked the question about the innate origin of causal perception, never tested before at birth. Three experiments were carried out to investigate sensitivity at birth to some visual spatiotemporal cues present in a launching event. Newborn babies, only a few hours old, showed that they significantly preferred a physical causality event (i.e. Michotte's Launching effect) when matched to a delay event (i.e. a delayed launching; Experiment 1) or to a non-causal event completely identical to the causal one except for the order of the displacements of the two objects involved which was swapped temporally (Experiment 3). This preference for the launching event, moreover, also depended on the continuity of the trajectory between the objects involved in the event (Experiment 2). These results support the hypothesis that the human system possesses an early available, possibly innate basic mechanism to compute causality, such a mechanism being sensitive to the additive effect of certain well-defined spatiotemporal cues present in the causal event independently of any prior visual experience.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Mar 25, 2013
The current study aimed at investigating own- vs. other-species preferences in 3-month-old infant... more The current study aimed at investigating own- vs. other-species preferences in 3-month-old infants. The infants’ eye movements were recorded during a visual preference paradigm to assess whether they show a preference for own-species faces when contrasted with other-species faces. Human and monkey faces, equated for all low-level perceptual characteristics, were used. Our results demonstrated that 3-month-old infants preferred the human face, suggesting that the face perception system becomes species-specific after 3 months of visual experience with a specific class of faces. The eye tracking results are also showing that fixations were more focused on the eye area of human faces, supporting the notion of their importance in holding visual attention.
Psicologia clinica dello sviluppo, 2019
Si tratta di un intervento che, partendo da dati pubblicati dal MIUR sull'aumento delle diagn... more Si tratta di un intervento che, partendo da dati pubblicati dal MIUR sull'aumento delle diagnosi di Disturbi Specifici dell'Apprendimento avvenuto in Italia in Italia negli ultimi anni dopo l'approvazione della legge 170 del 2010, intende aprire la discussione su quali fattori possono avere contribuito nel determinare tale aumento. Sono presi in considerazione sia fattori legati agli aspetti di valutazione clinica che fattori relativi al ruolo della scuola e della famiglia
Developmental Science, Mar 1, 2000
A two-process theory of the development of face processing predicted that newborns' preferential ... more A two-process theory of the development of face processing predicted that newborns' preferential orienting to face-like patterns would be stronger in the temporal visual field than in the nasal. This prediction was confirmed in a previous study. While it is known that the newborn tendency to orient to face-like patterns declines around 6 weeks of age, it is not known whether this is due to inhibition by cortical pathways or to the conflicting biases of cortical and subcortical pathways. In the present experiment we repeated the newborn study but with 4-month-olds and obtained results which were partially consistent with both the inhibition and the conflicting pathways accounts. We conclude that disappearance of the newborn tendency to orient to face-like patterns is probably due to multiple factors.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Dec 1, 2002
The present study investigated newbornsÕ ability to discriminate, recognize, and learn visual inf... more The present study investigated newbornsÕ ability to discriminate, recognize, and learn visual information embedded in the schematic face-like patterns preferred at birth. Four experiments were carried out using the visual-paired comparison paradigm. Results indicated that newborns discriminated face-like stimuli relying on their internal features (Experiments 1 and 4) and recognized a perceptual invariance between face-like configurations in conditions of low (Experiment 2) and high-perceptual variability (Experiment 3) of their inner elements. Altogether, data show that the presence of the preferred structure that schematically defines a face, displaying a triplet of elements in the correct locations for eyes and mouth, does not constitute a limit that constrains newbornsÕ face learning processes.
Infancy, Jun 1, 2003
This study explored newborns' ability to perceive perceptual similarities between different exemp... more This study explored newborns' ability to perceive perceptual similarities between different exemplars of 2 broad classes of simple shapes: closed and open geometric forms. Three experiments were carried out using a visual paired-comparison task. Evidence showed that, after familiarization either to closed-shaped or to openshaped forms, newborns manifested a novelty preference for a novel-category rather than for a familiar-category exemplar (Experiment 1). This result could not be explained either as a consequence of the newborns' inability to discriminate between instances of the same category of simple geometric forms (Experiment 2), or as a consequence of a spontaneous preference for the novel-category exemplars (Experiment 3). Overall, findings revealed that newborns are able to form broad categories of distinguishable geometric shapes by relying on the shapes' perceptual similarity. One crucial issue in developmental psychology is to understand when and how human beings organize objects and events into coherent patterns and treat them as equivalent despite perceived differences. This competence, referred to as perceptual categorization, has proved to be an efficient, powerful, and adaptive process that serves to make sense of an environment that continuously offers new percep
Infant Behavior & Development, Jul 1, 1994
... INFANT BEHAVIOR AND DEVELOPMENT 17, 293-302 (1994) Inhibition of Return in Newborn Infants EL... more ... INFANT BEHAVIOR AND DEVELOPMENT 17, 293-302 (1994) Inhibition of Return in Newborn Infants ELOISA VALENZA, FRANCESCA SIMION, AND ... Maylor (1985; also see Kwak & Egeth, 1992; Possamai, 1986; Tassinari, Aglioti, Chelazzi, Marzi, & Berlucchi, 1987) showed ...
Cognition, Mar 1, 2008
The study investigated the origins of the ability to recognize faces despite rotations in depth. ... more The study investigated the origins of the ability to recognize faces despite rotations in depth. Four experiments are reported that tested, using the habituation technique, whether 1-to-3-day-old infants are able to recognize the invariant aspects of a face over changes in viewpoint. Newborns failed to recognize facial perceptual invariances between profile and full-face poses (Experiment 1), and profile and 3/4 poses (Experiment 3). Conversely, newborns recognized the identity of a face through full-face and 3/4 poses (Experiment 2). This result cannot be explained as a consequence of newborns' inability to discriminate between the full-face and 3/4 points of view (Experiment 4). Overall, evidence was provided that newborns are able to derive a representation of an unfamiliar face that is resilient to a certain degree of rotation in depth, from full-face to 3/4 and vice versa.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Jun 24, 2002
Many experimental studies have been carried out to demonstrate that a multiccmponent complex skil... more Many experimental studies have been carried out to demonstrate that a multiccmponent complex skill as reading can be described through a series of processing stages (LaBerge & Jay Samuels, 1974). A visual word activates different codes: visual, phonological, semantic and some operations take place within each code. Consequently reading disabilities could be due either to the inability to deal with the different internal codes produced by a word (Posner, 1978; Snowling, 1980) or to the difficulties to operate within each code. While theories differ about the relationship between letter processing and word processing, almost all acknowledge that children must identify and discriminate among letters in order to read fluently (Gibson, 1969). Posner (1978) reviewed some studies to show that separable codes are activated when a visual word is presented. These include the physical (visual) and the phonetic codes found for individual letters. Thus many of the question to which the reading process has been subjected can benefit from studies on matching of letters. To trace the nature of the codes activated and the time course of the efficiency of letter processing could help reading researchers to a better understanding of the early letter processing skills. The general aim of the present study is to define the codes upon which different operations take place and to isolate the stages of visual information processing both with alphanumeric and nonalphanumeric material.
Developmental Science, Mar 21, 2013
Perception of mechanical (i.e. physical) causality, in terms of a cause-effect relationship betwe... more Perception of mechanical (i.e. physical) causality, in terms of a cause-effect relationship between two motion events, appears to be a powerful mechanism in our daily experience. In spite of a growing interest in the earliest causal representations, the role of experience in the origin of this sensitivity is still a matter of dispute. Here, we asked the question about the innate origin of causal perception, never tested before at birth. Three experiments were carried out to investigate sensitivity at birth to some visual spatiotemporal cues present in a launching event. Newborn babies, only a few hours old, showed that they significantly preferred a physical causality event (i.e. Michotte's Launching effect) when matched to a delay event (i.e. a delayed launching; Experiment 1) or to a non-causal event completely identical to the causal one except for the order of the displacements of the two objects involved which was swapped temporally (Experiment 3). This preference for the launching event, moreover, also depended on the continuity of the trajectory between the objects involved in the event (Experiment 2). These results support the hypothesis that the human system possesses an early available, possibly innate basic mechanism to compute causality, such a mechanism being sensitive to the additive effect of certain well-defined spatiotemporal cues present in the causal event independently of any prior visual experience.
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), Mar 25, 2013
The current study aimed at investigating own- vs. other-species preferences in 3-month-old infant... more The current study aimed at investigating own- vs. other-species preferences in 3-month-old infants. The infants’ eye movements were recorded during a visual preference paradigm to assess whether they show a preference for own-species faces when contrasted with other-species faces. Human and monkey faces, equated for all low-level perceptual characteristics, were used. Our results demonstrated that 3-month-old infants preferred the human face, suggesting that the face perception system becomes species-specific after 3 months of visual experience with a specific class of faces. The eye tracking results are also showing that fixations were more focused on the eye area of human faces, supporting the notion of their importance in holding visual attention.
Psicologia clinica dello sviluppo, 2019
Si tratta di un intervento che, partendo da dati pubblicati dal MIUR sull'aumento delle diagn... more Si tratta di un intervento che, partendo da dati pubblicati dal MIUR sull'aumento delle diagnosi di Disturbi Specifici dell'Apprendimento avvenuto in Italia in Italia negli ultimi anni dopo l'approvazione della legge 170 del 2010, intende aprire la discussione su quali fattori possono avere contribuito nel determinare tale aumento. Sono presi in considerazione sia fattori legati agli aspetti di valutazione clinica che fattori relativi al ruolo della scuola e della famiglia
Developmental Science, Mar 1, 2000
A two-process theory of the development of face processing predicted that newborns' preferential ... more A two-process theory of the development of face processing predicted that newborns' preferential orienting to face-like patterns would be stronger in the temporal visual field than in the nasal. This prediction was confirmed in a previous study. While it is known that the newborn tendency to orient to face-like patterns declines around 6 weeks of age, it is not known whether this is due to inhibition by cortical pathways or to the conflicting biases of cortical and subcortical pathways. In the present experiment we repeated the newborn study but with 4-month-olds and obtained results which were partially consistent with both the inhibition and the conflicting pathways accounts. We conclude that disappearance of the newborn tendency to orient to face-like patterns is probably due to multiple factors.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Dec 1, 2002
The present study investigated newbornsÕ ability to discriminate, recognize, and learn visual inf... more The present study investigated newbornsÕ ability to discriminate, recognize, and learn visual information embedded in the schematic face-like patterns preferred at birth. Four experiments were carried out using the visual-paired comparison paradigm. Results indicated that newborns discriminated face-like stimuli relying on their internal features (Experiments 1 and 4) and recognized a perceptual invariance between face-like configurations in conditions of low (Experiment 2) and high-perceptual variability (Experiment 3) of their inner elements. Altogether, data show that the presence of the preferred structure that schematically defines a face, displaying a triplet of elements in the correct locations for eyes and mouth, does not constitute a limit that constrains newbornsÕ face learning processes.
Infancy, Jun 1, 2003
This study explored newborns' ability to perceive perceptual similarities between different exemp... more This study explored newborns' ability to perceive perceptual similarities between different exemplars of 2 broad classes of simple shapes: closed and open geometric forms. Three experiments were carried out using a visual paired-comparison task. Evidence showed that, after familiarization either to closed-shaped or to openshaped forms, newborns manifested a novelty preference for a novel-category rather than for a familiar-category exemplar (Experiment 1). This result could not be explained either as a consequence of the newborns' inability to discriminate between instances of the same category of simple geometric forms (Experiment 2), or as a consequence of a spontaneous preference for the novel-category exemplars (Experiment 3). Overall, findings revealed that newborns are able to form broad categories of distinguishable geometric shapes by relying on the shapes' perceptual similarity. One crucial issue in developmental psychology is to understand when and how human beings organize objects and events into coherent patterns and treat them as equivalent despite perceived differences. This competence, referred to as perceptual categorization, has proved to be an efficient, powerful, and adaptive process that serves to make sense of an environment that continuously offers new percep
Infant Behavior & Development, Jul 1, 1994
... INFANT BEHAVIOR AND DEVELOPMENT 17, 293-302 (1994) Inhibition of Return in Newborn Infants EL... more ... INFANT BEHAVIOR AND DEVELOPMENT 17, 293-302 (1994) Inhibition of Return in Newborn Infants ELOISA VALENZA, FRANCESCA SIMION, AND ... Maylor (1985; also see Kwak & Egeth, 1992; Possamai, 1986; Tassinari, Aglioti, Chelazzi, Marzi, & Berlucchi, 1987) showed ...
Cognition, Mar 1, 2008
The study investigated the origins of the ability to recognize faces despite rotations in depth. ... more The study investigated the origins of the ability to recognize faces despite rotations in depth. Four experiments are reported that tested, using the habituation technique, whether 1-to-3-day-old infants are able to recognize the invariant aspects of a face over changes in viewpoint. Newborns failed to recognize facial perceptual invariances between profile and full-face poses (Experiment 1), and profile and 3/4 poses (Experiment 3). Conversely, newborns recognized the identity of a face through full-face and 3/4 poses (Experiment 2). This result cannot be explained as a consequence of newborns' inability to discriminate between the full-face and 3/4 points of view (Experiment 4). Overall, evidence was provided that newborns are able to derive a representation of an unfamiliar face that is resilient to a certain degree of rotation in depth, from full-face to 3/4 and vice versa.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Jun 24, 2002