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Olfactory-visual interaction in infancy: Do (un)familiar odors influence how 4-month-old infants look at familiar
and novel faces?
Karine Durand, Benoist Schaal
To cite this version:
Karine Durand, Benoist Schaal. Olfactory-visual interaction in infancy: Do (un)familiar odors influ-
ence how 4-month-old infants look at familiar and novel faces?. International Journal of Psychology,
Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2012, Proceedings of the 30th International Congress of Psychology, 47
(S1), pp.141-141. �10.1080/00207594.2012.709089�. �hal-00745917�
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Download by: [Inra] Date: 28 December 2015, At: 06:08
International Journal of Psychology
ISSN: 0020-7594 (Print) 1464-066X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/pijp20
Cognitive
To cite this article: (2012) Cognitive, International Journal of Psychology, 47:sup1, 109-151,
DOI: 10.1080/00207594.2012.709089
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207594.2012.709089
Published online: 24 Jul 2012.
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than neutral ones. The brain region most strongly implicated in emotional memory is the amygdala.
The release of adrenal stress hormones is thought to facilitate memory consolidation, and the effect in particular depend on central actions of stress hor- mones in the basolateral complex of the amygdala.
Dysfunction of the basolateral amygdala may thus induce selective forgetting of particular emotional information, but in humans there is scarce evidence for this hypothesis. Furthermore, it is still unclear whether these emotional memory effects are estab- lished instantaneously or in the long-term. Here we present data of a group offive subjects with rare mis-mutation of the ECM gene, which results in selective bilateral calcification of the amygdala. We tested these subjects against a group of matched controls on short-term and long-term memory using standardized stories with emotional content. Our preliminary data show significant selective impair- ments of short-term emotional but not long-term emotional episodic memory in the basolateral amygdala-damaged subjects. This suggests that hor- monal effects in the basolateral amygdala on epi- sodic emotional memory set off to facilitate emo- tional memory immediately. New data will also be presented on emotional spatial memory in these patients that might give further insights into the role of the basolateral amygdala in episodic emo- tional memory.
Symposium title: Spatial mental models through the lifespan
Convenor: Valerie Gyselinck
Spatial mental models throughout the life- span
Valerie GyselinckParis Descartes University, France Spatial representations of physical surroundings may be built by viewing, hearing, touching, or moving around objects in the environment. How- ever, they need not be built exclusively by a direct exploration of the environment, since humans have the capacity to construct abstract spatial represen- tations through the use of symbolic supports such as language and maps. Both of these situations correspond to common real-life experiences, such as when we travel with maps or have to under- stand or produce the verbal description of an itinerary. Spatial models may emerge from various sources and in various modalities (verbal, visual, navigation), and the comparison of these sources is a way to grasp some of basic common and di- verging characteristics of spatial representations. It has been suggested that spatial models derived from one source (e.g. language) may be flexible enough to allow for the computation of represen- tations that are equivalent to those elicited from other sources (e.g. a map). Positing the functional equivalence of spatial representations across input/
output modes does not imply that these represen- tations are formed with the same ease. The cog- nitive and linguistic capacities of the learner cer- tainly determine his/her ability to construct an accurate spatial representation and to use it effi- ciently, but to date little is known about this question. Some experimental studies show that the limitations of our working memory, verbal and visuo-spatial, may be of particular importance in this respect. Although much research has been
devoted to spatial representations in young adults, the nature of these spatial models and the ways in which they evolve throughout life from childhood (developing cognitive systems) to old age (declin- ing cognitive systems) are far from being under- stood. In addition, we do not know much about how children construct spatial models of itineraries and how these models change with increasing cognitive and linguistic development. We also do not know much concerning aging adults, who generally show a simultaneous decline in memory and spatial abilities, both of which are involved in the representations of itineraries. Gathering some well-known researchers of the domain, the objec- tive of this symposium is to shed light on these questions.
Using virtual reality to assess multifaceted episodic memory: Studies in normal and pathological aging
Pascale PiolinoParis Descartes University, France Within the multiple components of memory that together form a complete episodic memory, the spatial context is thought to be one of the most important. Episodic memory impairment is the hall- mark of early clinical manifestations of aging.
However, most neuropsychological assessments bear little similarity to the events that patients ac- tually experience as memories in daily life. We used a virtual environment to characterise multifaceted episodic memory profiles in healthy young and older adults, patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment and patients with early to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. The participants were succes- sively immersed as the driver of a virtual car (active exploration) and as the passenger of that car (pas- sive exploration). Subjects were instructed to en- code all elements of the environment as well as the associated spatio-temporal contexts. Following each immersion, we assessed the patient’s recall and recognition of the elements of the environment, temporal and egocentric and allocentric spatial in- formation. We found that the patients’performances were inferior to that of the healthy aged groups.
Spatial allocentric memory assessments were found to be particularly useful for distinguishing patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment from healthy older adults. Active exploration yielded enhanced recall of central and allocentric spatial information. Finally, the patients’ daily memory complaints were more highly correlated with their performances on the virtual test than with their performances on the classical memory test. Taken together, these results may provide additional in- sight into the diagnosis and rehabilitation of patho- logical aging.
Symposium title: The acquisition of exper- tise in face processing
Convenor: Baudouin Jean-Yves Plastic changes during development Adelaide De HeeringMcMaster University, Canada Plastic changes can be tracked during develop- ment, aging, learning, or in clinical disorders.
My work to date, on the development of face processing/recognition abilities and the role of experience in shaping these abilities, has used this
approach. I have been testing newborns with very little experience with faces and further investigat- ed typically developing children’s processing of upright faces they experience everyday. I also conducted experiments with individuals having accumulated visual experience with other-race faces (adopted children) or children faces (pre- schooler teachers) and compared their results to those of age-matched controls with no such expe- rience. I have been pursuing this line of research by contrasting children and preschoolers’perfor- mance when recognising upright (experienced cat- egory) and inverted faces (non experienced cate- gory). Overall, these results highlights the plasticity of the mechanisms underlying normal individuals’ abilities to process and recognise faces both in childhood and adulthood and empha- sises the importance of everyday visual experience with upright faces.
Olfactory-visual interaction in infancy: Do (un)familiar odors influence how 4-month- old infants look at familiar and novel faces?
Karine Durand University of Bourgogne, France;
Benoist Schaal
We conducted two experiments to explore whether and how familiar and novel odors affect 4-month old infants’responses to their mother’s or a stran- ger’s faces. In experiment 1, we tested the effects of a familiar odor (the odor carried on a T-shirt worn by the mother) on face preferences. Infants were presented with their mother’s face paired with a stranger female’s faces while either exposed to their mother’s odor or not. Although, overall, infants looked longer at the stranger’s face regard- less of the odor condition, they looked less at the stranger’s face in the presence of the mother’s odor than in its absence. In experiment 2, infants were presented the same visual stimuli as in Experiment 1 while exposed to the odor carried on a T-shirt worn by the mother, the odor of the T-shirt worn by another mother, and a control T-shirt in counter- balanced order. Results indicate that, in presence of any of the odor stimuli, infants looked less at the stranger’s face. In sum, our study showed that odors influence infant visual attention and modu- late infant responsiveness to social visual stimula- tion. Thesefindings raise new questions about the heretofore largely unexplored role of olfaction in the development of multisensory perception and integration.
Visual exploration patterns of 8-month-old infants’discrimination of facial expressions of emotion
Baudouin Jean-YvesUniversity of Burgundy, France The purpose of the study was to explore visual scanning behaviour of expressive faces in 8- month-old infants. Thirty infants were familiarised with the neutral photograph of a female face, and then presented with expressive photographs (happy, angry, disgusted, fearful and sad) of the same fe- male face. Eye-movements were recorded and transformed to match a prototypical face, so as to allow seeing which facial parts were focused according to trials and facial expressions. The results indicated that 8-month-old infants paid at- tention to different facial parts according to the emotions expressed by the faces, the features asso-
