Mireille Bastien | Aix-Marseille University (original) (raw)

Papers by Mireille Bastien

The McGurk effect was investigated in a group of ten-yearold dyslexic children and in two control... more The McGurk effect was investigated in a group of ten-yearold dyslexic children and in two control groups of normal readers. Audio and audiovisual stimuli were presented in silence or with a masking noise. The results indicated no significant differences between the three groups for the auditory stimuli. For the audiovisual stimuli, the dyslexic group showed fewer illusory percepts than the group of sameage normal readers but performed similarly to the group with the same reading level.

Reading and Writing, 2001

The purpose of this study was to determine the natureand role of knowledge constructed by the chi... more The purpose of this study was to determine the natureand role of knowledge constructed by the child at thevery beginning of his or her contact with printedwords, i.e., during the logographic phase. The resultsof four experiments conducted with 5-year-oldsprovided no supporting evidence for global processingof words. They did suggest, however, that childrenrely on the letters in words, which act as wordidentifiers. A few letters appear to suffice,particularly if they are rare or in word-initialposition. Moreover, letter order is not processed bysome children. The results as a whole indicate thatthe letters in a word serve as its identifying visualproperties as long as, for the child, the solefunction of the written language is to encode meaning.This phase appears to be crucial in learning to read,since it supplies the precursors upon which lateracquisitions are based.

Les travaux sur l'acquisition de la lecture peuvent se regrouper en deux grandes catégories selon... more Les travaux sur l'acquisition de la lecture peuvent se regrouper en deux grandes catégories selon qu'ils s'appuient sur une description du lecteur habile ou qu'ils adoptent une démarche développementale. Ces deux démarches présentent, selon nous, la même faiblesse: ils mettent davantage l'accent sur la lecture que sur le lecteur lui-même. Le fait de nous centrer sur le lecteur nous a conduite à réinterpréter certains résultats classiques et nous a permis de montrer l'importance d'un point quelque peu négligé. Ainsi, pour que l'enfant puisse mettre en place le système de correspondance grapho-phonologique, il lui faut non seulement stabiliser la connaissance que J'ordre des lettres du mot est nécessaire, mais surmonter la difficulté que reprèsente la gestion d'un double parcours d'ordre. Trois séries de données expérimentales illustrent notre propos.

International Journal of Psychology, 1997

... iam±myriam, valeÂ rie±taleÂ rie, nicolas±kicolas, zorro±zorro). The children's atten... more ... iam±myriam, valeÂ rie±taleÂ rie, nicolas±kicolas, zorro±zorro). The children's attention was attracted to the ®rst letter, and they were told immediately whether their answer was correct or incorrect. No feedback was given during the actual test, however. ...

Current Psychology Letters: Behaviour, Brain and Cognition

The McGurk effect was investigated in a group of ten-year-old dyslexic children and in two contro... more The McGurk effect was investigated in a group of ten-year-old dyslexic children and in two control groups of normal readers. Audio, video, and audio-visual stimuli were presented in silence or with a masking noise. In the audio-visual condition, the auditory information was presented either 160 ms before, or at the same time as, the visual information. For the incongruent audio-visual stimuli, the dyslexics exhibited a smaller McGurk effect than did the normal readers of the same chronological age, but did not differ from the controls of the same reading age. The results indicated no significant differences between the three groups for the auditory stimuli. Taken together, the results suggest a developmental lag in dyslexics.

Epilepsy & Behavior, 2014

The present proof-of-concept study investigated the feasibility of skin conductance biofeedback t... more The present proof-of-concept study investigated the feasibility of skin conductance biofeedback training in reducing seizures in adults with drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), whose seizures are triggered by stress. Skin conductance biofeedback aims to increase levels of peripheral sympathetic arousal in order to reduce cortical excitability. This might seem somewhat counterintuitive, since such autonomic arousal may also be associated with increased stress and anxiety. Thus, this sought to verify that patients with TLE and stress-triggered seizures are not worsened in terms of stress, anxiety, and negative emotional response to this nonpharmacological treatment. Eleven patients with drug-resistant TLE with seizures triggered by stress were treated with 12 sessions of biofeedback. Patients did not worsen on cognitive evaluation of attentional biases towards negative emotional stimuli (P N .05) or on psychometric evaluation with state anxiety inventory (P = .059); in addition, a significant improvement was found in the Negative Affect Schedule (P = .014) and in the Beck Depression Inventory (P = .009). Biofeedback training significantly reduced seizure frequency with a mean reduction of − 48.61% (SD = 27.79) (P = .005). There was a correlation between the mean change in skin conductance activity over the biofeedback treatment and the reduction of seizure frequency (r(11) = .62, P = .042). Thus, the skin conductance biofeedback used in the present study, which teaches patients to achieve an increased level of peripheral sympathetic arousal, was a well-tolerated nonpharmacological treatment. Further, wellcontrolled studies are needed to confirm the therapeutic value of this nonpharmacological treatment in reducing seizures in adults with drug-resistant TLE with seizures triggered by stress.

Epilepsy & Behavior, 2009

Emotional distress is one of the most frequently reported seizure precipitants in epilepsy, but l... more Emotional distress is one of the most frequently reported seizure precipitants in epilepsy, but little is known about its causes and processes. Interestingly, it is now accepted that emotional distress, such as anxiety, may be accompanied by evolutionary adaptation, or abnormal attentional vigilance toward threatening stimuli. The goal of this research was to study the link between emotional seizure precipitants and pathological attention-related biases toward threat in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). To this aim, patients were asked to report the extent to which seizures were elicited or not by emotional precipitants, allowing distinction of two groups: ''Emo-TLE" group and ''Other-TLE" group. Attentional biases were investigated by comparing patients' emotional Stroop and dot detection paradigms with those of healthy individuals (control group). We found that the Emo-TLE group was characterized by attentional bias toward threatening stimuli compared with neutral stimuli and compared with the other two groups. We thus hypothesize that attentional biases related to threat in patients with TLE may sustain emotional vulnerability and seizure occurrence.

Annee Psychologique, 1992

Annee Psychologique, 1997

The present research contends that the classical design used in the investigation of analogical p... more The present research contends that the classical design used in the investigation of analogical problem-solving undermines young children's abilities. The base analog is usually introduced as a story and the probability of extraction of the relational structure is then very low. The first experiment reveals that when the source is introduced as a guided problem-solving activity, most 5-to 6-years-old children do show analogical transfer. Experiment 2 enables us to better understand the role of perceptual similarity between base and target by highlighting the critical role of the conditions of the source encoding (problem-solving vs enacted story vs read story) in the probability of analogical transfer.

International Journal of Psychology, 1999

ABSTRACT

International Journal of Human-computer Studies / International Journal of Man-machine Studies, 1999

It is known that novices show poor problem-solving performances and that they engage in a relativ... more It is known that novices show poor problem-solving performances and that they engage in a relatively ine$cient inferential reasoning mode. Experts show high performances in routine situations in which they only activate knowledge. The main purpose of this work was to test the hypothesis that, under some conditions, novices may develop a more e$cient diagnostic reasoning than experts, i.e. they may discover the cause of a faulty system conducting fewer tests while avoiding "xation errors. This hypothesis mainly relies on the possibility that experts may be victims of their own knowledge format (French and Sternberg, manuscript). It is tested in a faulty electronic circuit troubleshooting task. Data suggest that novices perform better than experts. Results are discussed with reference to the concepts of schema and expert error.

Cette étude, qui s'insère dans une recherche longitudinale en cours, a pour objectif de préciser ... more Cette étude, qui s'insère dans une recherche longitudinale en cours, a pour objectif de préciser la nature des indices prélevés par l'enfant lorsqu'il identifie les mots de manière logographique. Deux tâches de reconnaissance de mots écrits, pilotées par ordinateur, ont été proposées à des enfants de Grande Section de maternelle. Les résultats montrent que l'identification des mots repose sur un traitement analytique et non sur un traitement global.

Revue française de pédagogie, n°152, juillet-août-septembre 2005, 21-28 Descripteurs (TEE) : appr... more Revue française de pédagogie, n°152, juillet-août-septembre 2005, 21-28 Descripteurs (TEE) : apprentissage, conditions d'apprentissage, développement cognitif, métacognition, subjectivité

European Journal of Psychology of Education, 2003

Two tasks of word identification were proposed to children in their last year of upper preschool ... more Two tasks of word identification were proposed to children in their last year of upper preschool classes. The results show that identification is not based on an holistic processing but on an analytic one: some letters are enough, especially the first ones. Moreover, their order does not matter. During this period where reading is visuo-semantic in nature, children process letters as words properties. This kind of processing provides them with an “epilinguistic” knowledge about visual properties of the words, which is one of those precursors of decoding acquisition. Cette étude, qui s’insère dans une recherche longitudinale en cours, a pour objectif de préciser la nature des indices prélevés par l’enfant lorsqu’il identifie les mots de manière logographique. Deux tâches de reconnaissance de mots écrits, pilotées par ordinateur, ont été proposées à des enfants de Grande Section de maternelle. Les résultats montrent que l’identification des mots repose sur un traitement analytique et non sur un traitement global. Quelques lettres suffisent à reconnaître un mot, surtout si ce sont celles situées au début. Par ailleurs l’ordre des lettres n’est pas traité. Pendant cette période où l’écrit a comme unique fonction celle de coder du. sens, le mot est, traité à partir de ses constituants graphiques, c’est-à-dire, des lettres qui le composent. Ce mode de traitement fournit à l’enfant une connaissance épi linguistique sur les propriétés visuelles des mots, connaissance qui constitue un des précurseurs de l’apprentissage du codage grapho-phonologique.

Brain and Language, 2003

Identification of letters embedded in briefly presented words (e.g., TABLE), pseudowords (e.g., T... more Identification of letters embedded in briefly presented words (e.g., TABLE), pseudowords (e.g., TOBLE), and illegal nonwords (e.g., TPBFE) was measured using the Reicher-Wheeler paradigm. Children diagnosed as dyslexic and showing a clear disadvantage in recognizing and reading aloud words and pseudowords (compared to chronological age-matched controls) showed a pattern of results that was qualitatively identical to both reading age and chronological age control children. In all three groups a small nonsignificant advantage was obtained for letter identification in words compared to pseudowords, and a massive advantage for letter identification in pseudowords compared to illegal nonwords. A group of adult participants tested with the same materials showed the classic word superiority effect as well as a pseudoword advantage over illegal nonwords. These results suggest that the pseudoword superiority effect is subtended by regularities operating at the level of sublexical orthographic representations (orthotactic constraints). This phenomenon could provide a useful tool for future investigations of the development of orthotactic constraints during reading acquisition.