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Selected abstracts from European Research Conference held at San Feliu de Guixols, Spain, 10-15 April, 1996
Rat and human mothers, through contact and milk delivery, influence infants' physiology, behaviour and affectional systems. Heart rate and basal metabolic rate are lowered, crying is arrested, pain threshold is increased and infants prefer maternal features that had been associated with sweet taste or milk flavour. Although contact and chemosensory systems converge on common effector pathways, they do so through different brain mechanisms. Sweet taste and milk flavour directly trigger central opioid release; contact systems are effective through non-opioid pathways. Moreover, the time courses of the two systems differ. Chemosensory changes endure for 5-7 min. after sugar or milk delivery, and this can not be attributed to lingering aftertaste. In contrast contact influences terminate within seconds of contact termination. Milk digestion induces a cascade of peptide changes that either calm infants or blunt pain.
Cholecystokinin (CCK), a gut peptide released by protein and fat, quiets infant rats and the quieting effect of milk is blocked by devazepide, a specific CCK receptor blocker, thereby implicating a physiological role for CCK under the normal course of events., Betacasomorphine, an opioid hydrolysed from milk casein during digestion, increases pain threshold in rats when delivered systemically or specifically into the lateral ventricles, but its physiological role has not yet been established because Bcasomorphine may not survive degradation by the liver.
The ability of sucrose per se to calm human infants and normalise their heart rate diminishes with time. By four weeks of age chemosensory afferents must be integrated with visual stimulation in order to be effective. Specifically, four-week-old infants are only moderately calmed when receiving sucrose from an experimenter who does not establish eye contact with the infant. When eye contact is maintained during sucrose delivery and thereafter, however, four-week-olds are indistinguishable from newborns or two-week old infants who receive sucrose in the absence of visual engagement. The implications of these studies for establishing the mother-infant bond will be discussed.
The question of continuity or discontinuity in the process of language acquisition will firstly be discussed in terms of its relevance to theoretical models of linguistic processes. According to different models, the researchers' definition of the unit of analysis taken as "starting point" for the study of language acquisition has changed from two-word sentences to one-word utterances to intentional vocal communication. Consequently, this also produced a change in the way the continuity is conceptualised. The more the hypothesised origin of the process eventually leading to the mature linguistic behaviour is precocious, the more indefensible continuity appears to become. Within social-interactionist models, which stress the communicative base of the language acquisition process, the continuity hypothesis is challenged by two major shift points: a) the change from prelinguistic gestural and vocal communication to the first one word utterances; b) the change from one-word utterances to multi-word utterances. With respect to the abilities we can attribute to the infant exhibiting these different modalities of communicating with the social world, the continuity issue is twofold: 1) is the more mature linguistic behaviour predictable from the more primitive ones? 2) do these different communicative competences truly reveal the "stage-like" (in Piagetian terms) nature of the process of language acquisition? The first question will be discussed by analysing the concept of "prelinguistic communicative competence" and presenting data about the early predictors of language development. The second question will be addressed using the concept of "transitional phenomena" through which to pin-point all the steps in the construction of a more complex capacity upon a simpler one.
The emergence of cerebral dominance, using important developmental milestones such as preference in neonatal head position, handedness, fine and gross motor activity and speech is still unknown. Hypotheses to explain the etiology of, for instance left handedness, vary from environmental, genetic to early brain damage. Previc suggests that cerebral lateralisation is caused by asymmetrical prenatal development of the vestibular organ because of the asymmetrical position of the fetus during the latter part of the final trimester(1). The neonate already demonstrates a variety of lateralised activity spontaneously (head preference, handface contact with ipsilateral hand) as well as elicited (asymmetrical tonic neck reflex, stepping movements, grasping reflex, Moro response).
Since the introduction of real-time ultrasound the development of spontaneous motor activity can also be studied prenatally. The head preference position is studied throughout gestation and from 12-24 weeks the head is most frequently in a midline position, thereafter a head right position increases and after 36 weeks a clear preference in head right position exists(2). This position is independent from placental localisation or position of the fetal spine in relation to the mother. An important observation is that the orientation of the head in relation to the pelvis is not fixed although the head is engaged in the pelvic inlet(3). Hepper found a preference in right thumb sucking as early as 15 weeks(4). Both findings lead to the conclusion that these prenatal preferences are a spontaneous expression of the developing nervous system unaffected by the environment.
Anatomically the first cerebral asymmetry can be measured from 20 weeks of gestation in the planum temporale. Early injury of the brain (periods of utero-placental insufficiency, preterm birth) can influence the development of cerebral asymmetry. A lack of cell death in the right hemisphere may be a mechanism resulting in disordered hemisphere dominance.
Abnormal development in head laterialisation can be found in low-risk preterms with abnormal quality of motility and a high occurrence of neurological handicap(5). Dyslexic children have symmetrical brains and abnormal callosal size. The latter possibly causes interhemispheric dysfunction inhibiting cerebral dominance.
In conclusion: The emergence of lateralisation of motor activity starts prenatally, probably before anatomical asymmetry can be demonstrated. Genetic models explaining handedness together with lateralisation in language are still uncertain.
This paper considers how loss of vision or hearing affects vocabulary development in infancy. The first part of the paper will consider how children with intact sight and hearing first understand and produce words. It will be seen that the infant's initial understanding and use of words emerges from consistent and repeated exposure to events that are accompanied by consistent language from the infant's communicative partner. Typically infants are able to observe the relevant event and hear the relevant adult language and then integrate the information they have gained from sight and hearing. The second part of the paper discusses the early vocabulary development of children with severe/profound prelingual hearing loss and contrasts this with the development of hearing children. For deaf infants, the perception of language (both signed and spoken) is heavily dependent on vision and so, potentially, they are faced with the need to divide attention between adult language and the object (or event) to which it refers. The difficulties that this may create for early vocabulary development ( and strategies that can be adopted by mothers to minimise the problems of divided attention ( will be discussed. The final part of the paper examines the problems that confront the blind infant. Here it will be argued that a major difficulty is in understanding the notion of reference which, for the sighted children, is an essential aspect of understanding and producing object names.
It is commonly assumed that regions of the cerebral cortex are prespecified for cognitive functions such as language and face processing. However, recent evidence from a variety of sources, including cortical transplant studies in rodents, indicates that early in life regions of the cerebral cortex can support a variety of different representations. There is, in fact, no evidence that regions of cortex contain intrinsically prespecified (innate) representations. Rather, I propose that representations emerge within the cortex constrained by (i) the basic circuitry of cortex, (ii) the correlational structure of the input, and (iii) the dynamics of postnatal brain development. The contribution of these three factors in constraining the types of representations that emerge will be illustrated by reference to a simple neuroconnectionist model of the cortex. Simulations with the model illustrate how the basic circuitry of the cortex may ensure that inputs which are alike along some stimulus dimension tend to be represented close by, in clusters of neurons with similar response properties, or in spatially arranged topographic representations. Other simulations demonstrate that the correlational structure of the input is important for determining the extent to which neurons in the network develop functions which integrate information from different sources (higher order functions). Finally, I will use the model to illustrate the importance of the dynamics of postnatal brain development with simulations that include waves of a "trophic factor" that "prunes" synaptic contacts within the network in a manner consistent with the known postnatal development of cortex.
Regardless of culture, young infants are capable of discriminating among all phonetic contrasts used in the world's languages. By the end of the first year, a dramatic change has occurred. Infants' abilities to discriminate foreign contrasts are highly reduced. A similar pattern occurs with regard to speech production. Infants begin life producing utterances that are language general. By the end of the first year, their utterances become language-specific. The goal of theory has been to account for the transitions in infants' underlying language abilities. Recent studies in my laboratories in America, Sweden and Japan have resulted in a three-stage model of speech development, called the Native Language Magnet (NLM) model. NLM suggests a common cause for the transition in infants' perception and production of speech.
Phase 1: Infants are born with innate perceptual boundaries that grossly partition the incoming speech stream into phonetically relevant categories. Non-human animals also show these auditory/perceptual "boundaries" suggesting that they are deeply embedded in our phylogenetic history. Infants' abilities are thus present at birth and attributable to general auditory/perceptual processing mechanisms rather than to a "language module".
Phase 2: Exposure to ambient language results in the formation of speech representations, stored memories of the sound patterns that reflect the distributional properties of the infant's native language. Stored representations produce perceptual magnet effects wherein the best instances of categories ("prototypes") pull other members of the category towards them in perceptual space. In effect, language exposure warps perception, resulting in a "perceptual map" in which perceptual distance is shrunk around the category's most typical instances and stretched at the boundaries between categories.
Phase 3: The initial language-general state of the perceptual mechanism has been altered. The theory is recursive in the sense that the output of phase 2 has reorganised the innately given framework. A perceptual space characterised by simple boundaries has been replaced by a warped space dominated by magnet effects. In the newly configured space, certain perceptual boundaries have been functionally erased. The resulting perceptual map for phonetic space serves to guide the acquisition of speech gestures. The speech representational system is thus polymodally mapped. At this point, a language-specific form of speech perception and production exists.
The Native Language Magnet theory accounts for a variety of facts in the perception and production of speech by infants and adults. Discussion will focus on a description of the theory and its implications for the origins of linguistic systems.
Three major questions will be addressed in this presentation.
What type of acoustical - and more precisely speech - stimuli can reach the foetal ear? In utero recordings and acoustic measurements (power spectrum analysis) demonstrate that, in contrast to previous opinion, (a) intra-uterine SPLs are not uniform inside the uterus; (b) the maternal heart-beat does not represent the major component of the environment for the cephalic foetus, thus background maternal noise does not mask a wide range of external sounds; (c) speech emitted at a conversational level, in the vicinity of a pregnant mother, is audible and emerges from the background noise in its components over 100 Hz and is only episodically masked, if at all. Its prosodic features are preserved. Thus, the foetal ear can be activated by speech sounds uttered by various speakers, although it can be most easily and frequently activated by the mother's speech.
What are the foetal abilities for processing auditory signals? Electrophysiological and neurochemical demonstrations of prenatal auditory function have been obtained in several mammalian species. In the human, cardiac and motor responses to diverse vibro-tactile and auditory stimulation have been extensively studied in the last three months of pregnancy and some studies have recorded auditory evoked potentials during labour. Evidence for prenatal auditory function indicating that discriminative abilities related to sound pressure, pitch and tempi, are operating in the near-term foetus will be presented. What are the specific and non-specific consequences of prenatal exposure to sound? Observations and experiments related to (a) global and specific, pre and post-natal effects of foetal exposure to sound (linguistics or not); and (b) prenatal learning of speech signals will be reported.
Since the early seventies, when imitation of the newborn and the young infant was experimentally documented, a lot of interesting research data from different areas (developmental-cognitive, neurosciences, behaviourism, etc.) revealed that the newborn baby is a much more active and capable human being than classical psychological theories admitted. Imitation remains very much in discussion as it touches upon many different aspects of functioning of the human mind, i.e. intersensory perception and intermodal coordination, emotional and motivational issues, cognitive capacities, developmental theories, etc. Some hypotheses have already been advanced to explain the phenomenon which, however, still seems to puzzle the neuroscientists and the developmental psychologists. The question of what kind of representational capacity could be involved in early imitative skills will be addressed and early imitation will be discussed within the theoretical framework of motivation and capacity for intersubjective communication existing at birth, drawing ideas and hypotheses from cognitive and psychoanalytical theories.
I will present data indicating that synchronisation between specific motor activities and preverbal vocalisation is indispensable for infants purposefully to produce sounds with segmentary features and consonant elements as well as sounds varying in suprasegmental pitch contours. I will talk about types of synchronisation, first, synchronisation between rhythmic leg or arm movement and laughter or babbling, and second, synchronisation between index-finger extension and cooing.
Even from its first appearance at the age of 3 to 4 months of the infant's life laughter, is frequently accompanied by rhythmic leg movements. Through this synchronisation, the behaviour pattern of laughter shows qualitative changes. In particular, the number of syllables contained in a laugh increases and the duration of utterance of each of the syllables becomes shorter. This "practice" is essential to infants' development of the skill to produce multi-syllabic speech-like vocalisations with consonant elements typical of babbling at the ages of 6-8 months. During the same period, infants develop another linguistic ability, independently of the development of babbling. This concerns the means of signalling different communicative functions, using suprasegmental features in cooing. Thereafter the ability to utter mono-syllabic sounds with varying suprasegmental elements, and the ability to produce multi-syllabic sounds with consonant elements, combine with one another, which takes another 3-4 months. It is of interest for is process of combination that synchronising index-finger extension with vocal utterances appears to play an important role.
Language has to be studied as an endowment that is genetically determined and culturally clinched. From this perspective the study of the cortical structures that mediate language comprehension and production furnish additional data that may make it easier to understand our language processing device. Moreover, the study of the contrasting way in which the maternal language and a second language compete for these cortical structures adds data that can clarify essential aspects relating to the neuropsychology of language acquisition. I will present the results of brain-imaging studies (PETscan and IMRI) carried out on monolingual and bilingual volunteers who listen to stories in their maternal language or in a second language. Our results will be compared to results that emanate from research on newborns and young children.
Infant imitation is based both on general cognitive functions and a special understanding of humans. On the cognitive side, infants must see adults' acts, transduce perception into action, and, if there is a delay, act on the basis of a stored representation of the invisible. Thus imitation addresses classical issues in perception, intermodal coordination, and the origins of representation. Imitation also taps the special understanding of people, inasmuch as it involves infants' recognition that they are in some sense like the person they see. This perception of "like me" equivalence at the level of human acts provides a framework for communication and an underpinning for the later emergence of a theory of mind. Empirical findings to be discussed include: innate components of imitation, developmental transitions in the first 6 months, deferred imitation in the first year, and new experiments exploring infants' understanding of the intentions of others. At a more theoretical level, I will try to show that there are deep connections between imitation and two other topics in developmental cognitive psychology: the object concept and theory of mind. Regarding the former, Meltzoff and Moore's (1994) "identity hypothesis" for imitation will be discussed. Our view holds that early imitation is motivated by, and serves the function of establishing the identity of people. In the domain of inanimate objects, infants use physical actions (e.g. shaking) to re-identify objects after a break in perceptual contact; for people they use imitation. Thus we suggest that imitation is to understanding people as physical manipulation is to understanding things. The notion that infants are deeply concerned with identity problems (which individual is this?) provides interesting links between imitation and the object concept. Regarding theory of mind, I have recently begun to investigate when and how infants come to understand that others have intentions. Intentions cannot be seen, but it is part of our everyday common-sense psychology that human behaviour can be predicted and explained by a concept of intention that underlies and generates behaviour. It will be argued that the fundamental insight that others are "like me" ( an insight first embodied and tested in the arena of imitation ( confronts infants with the possibility that others, like the self, also have mental states that underlie surface behaviour. In particular, infants come to see other humans as intentional agents who make mistakes and can "mean to do something other than was done. Understanding the intentions of others is crucial for higher-level communication and language.
The present report draws attention to the question of species-typical adaptations in the human caregiver for didactic guidance towards speech. Behavioural microanalyses of infant-directed speech during preverbal mother-infant interactions from birth to 15 months have demonstrated that mothers intuitively display a finely tuned repertoire of behavioural patterns that match or complement the infant's maturing perceptual and vocal skills, and that facilitate procedural practising of various prelinguistic subroutines. Some of these patterns have been shown universally in mothers, fathers, and young children, and in cultures and languages as diverse as Caucasian American and Mandarin Chinese. Mothers simplify and clarify the prosody of speech; they model and imitate infant vocalisations; and they provide repetitive interactional frames which help establish a common time frame, joint mutual attention, joint action, joint attention and reference to objects and events, a joint taxonomy for context-related experience, and joint prelinguistic/symbolic codes. Thus, mothers and infants seem to jointly construct common ground for the transition from presymbolic to symbolic communication. Current evidence concerning the universality of caregiving patterns, their nonconscious regulation and their adjustment to infantile predispositions for speech, point to complementary predispositions in the human caregiver.
Studies of human infants provide evidence for early developing systems of knowledge that are domain-specific, task-specific, and informatively encapsulated: three features of modular cognitive mechanisms. With development some of the limits of these knowledge systems are overcome, allowing children to reason more flexibly and to extend their knowledge beyond its initial bounds. I discuss three areas in which this developmental change appears to occur: space, number and object categorisation.. Studies of children and adults' representations of space, becomes more flexible over development, although focused study of these processes remains a task for the future.
On the basis of much suggestive evidence we will assume that infants parse socio-affective interactions into units of intentions (of self or other) that are goal oriented. The environment of information available to the infant during intimate socio-affective exchanges is perhaps unique, in large part because the infant's changing states of activation and affect are such salient features. Something like emotionally charged, short, relational story lines are needed to explain many observations of interpersonal behavior. We will suggest a unit of interpersonal and intersubjective experience that could be represented and serve such a function. It consists of three co-occuring and integrated aspects: 1) The unfolding of an intention in a non-verbal narrative-like form, (at its simplest, a beginning, middle and end). This aspect provides a meaning line and meaning boundary for the unit. 2) As the intention moves towards its goal, it creates a temporal feeling contour, made up of patterned shifts in activation and affect. This aspect provides a temporal line and temporal boundary for the unit. 3) Various discrete perceptions can be attached to points along the narrative or temporal line of the unit. Together these three aspects make up a "proto-narrative envelope". The nature as well as clinical and research utility of this proposed "envelope" will be explored.
A critical issue in understanding the development of language is how abstract, rule-driven, symbolic behaviour can emerge from the minds of infants. A common assumption is that language and other symbolic cognition, with their computational character, are fundamentally different from and rise above the purely perceptual-motor behaviour of infants. A dynamic systems approach makes different assumptions: that all cognitive processes occur in real and continuous time. Because the cognitive system is a dynamical system consisting of nervous system, body, and environment as components of mutual and simultaneous change, symbolic function is always embodied in action in the world. For development, therefore, the question becomes how symbol-like behaviour co-develops with real-time processes such as moving, perceiving, wanting, attending, and remembering. In this talk, I will report on studies of object retrieval in infants which focus on the inter-relation between real time and developmental time dynamics. This work challenges traditional interpretations and illustrates how dynamic assumptions can illuminate early development.
This paper will explore the interplay between gestures and words in the early vocabularies of children between the ages of 12 and 20 months. This developmental period seems particularly interesting for analyzing the role of gestures with respect to the development of the symbolic function. The symbolic capacity may be generally free from modality bias. In particular we will analyze the semantic content of verbal and gestural vocabularies as well as the frequency and context of use. In addition particular attention will be devoted to the use of two-element combinations of words and/or gestures. Results indicate that the use of gestures and gesture-word combinations during the transition to two-word speech is a robust feature of communicative development and gestures seem to play an important role as a transitional device enroute to two-word speech.
A comparison between gestures produced by children exposed to a spoken linguistic input and one bilingual child exposed to both a spoken and signed input will be presented and discussed (age 0-20 months).
The study of deaf and hearing children exposed to a sign language and a comparison of their communicative and linguistic development and that of children exposed only to a spoken linguistic input would be extremely interesting. Speaking children move from communication in both the gestural and the vocal modalities to language in the vocal modality alone. In contrast, children exposed to a sign language input go from communication to language in the same visual-gestural modality. Both signing and speaking children produce early communicative signals in the gestural modality, but this advantage seems to be a communicative phenomenon and not a symbolic, linguistic one.
The British Psychological Society Developmental Section will hold its 1997 annual conference at Loughborough University
Fourth Congress of the International Society for Cultural Research and Activity Theory.
"Activity theory and cultural historical approaches to social practice"
For further information contact: Annie Dolmer, Institute of Psychology, Aarhus University, Asylvej 4, DK-8240 Risskov, Denmark.
The Rennes Conference, organised by Michel Delau, will take place September 3rd to 7th Rennes, France 1997.
The conference application pack is available by post from:
VIIIth European Conference on Developmental Psychology
Laboratoire de Psychologie du Developpement et de l'Education
6 Ave Gaston Berger 35043
Rennes
Cedex
France
or
Deadline for submissions Dec 15th 1996.
Deadline for reduced fees March 15th 1997.
I am pleased to invite you to the VIIIth European Conference on Developmental Psychology in Rennes, France, September 3-7 1997.
This second announcement provides information concerning the programme of the conference and details of registration and accommodation. It includes forms for registration, accommodation, and scientific communication proposals.
We hope to have the pleasure to see you in France, and especially in Brittany for this conference, and will try our best to make it a successful event.
M. Deleau.
Rennes is the capital of Brittany, in the western peninsula of France which is a famous for tourism. It is situated near the sea, only one hour from the Channel in the north, and from the Atlantic Ocean in the south. Rennes has a preserved historic centre with buildings from the XVIth and XVIIth centuries.
It is also one of the most dynamic cities in France with around 50 000 students at two Universities, Higher Education Centres and numerous Research Centres. Rennes is easily reached by car, by train (two hours from Paris by T.G.V.), by ferry ( Portsmouth-St Malo ), and by planes (regular lines with Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Cork-Dublin, Geneva, London, Madrid, Milan, Turin).
The Scientific programme will consist of invited addresses, symposia, poster-workshops and individual presentations, organized under the responsibility of the International Scientific Committee. There are also possibilities for arranging pre- and post Conference Workshops.
The Scientific Committee, responsible for the programme, is chaired by Pr. M. Deleau (University of Rennes 2, France). The other members are
There will be five invited addresses given by
and one special scientific event: Future perspectives on Developmental Psychology, a Special Symposium in honour of Professor Barbel INHELDER, with addresses by Prs J. Delval, P. Van Geert.
Symposia, Posterworkshops & individual posters may be proposed in any field of Developmental Psychology. With the exception of the invited addresses, the proposals will be selected through a review process, by the members of the Scientific Committee. The Scientific Committee has expressed a special interest in the following themes:
Individuals may appear in the programme once as an organizer or discussant and once as the first author in a Symposium or Posterworkshop, or in a Poster session. In Symposia, papers should come from at least two different European countries and from three different research centres.
Symposia consist of a session of paper presentations lasting two hours. They should be organised by two co-convenors, and should include 4 speakers and a discussant. One of the co-convenors may be the discussant, the other may function as the chair person. The chair may also present one of the papers.
Individual contributions in the symposia should not exceed 20 minutes. Following the individual presentations, the discussant should introduce a general discussion.
Symposia proposals should be sent by one of the convenors who will then be considered by the organisers as the responsible person.
Posterworkshop should involve two co-convenors, one discussant and approximately twelve presenters of thematically related posters. Following an initial display period, a general one-hour discussion will take place.
Posterworshop proposals should be sent by one of the convenors who will be considered as the responsible person.
Selected individual Posters will be displayed during a session of three hours.
Pre- and Post-Conference workshops can be organized on the Conference Site on Monday 1st, Tuesday 2nd or Sunday 7th September. Proposals for such workshops should be sent before December 15 1996. The proposal must describe precisely the objectives of the workshop, the number of participants that can be accepted and the technical requirements.
One or two more additional nights can be added to the Conference package for participants in such workshops.
REGISTRATION FEE
Payment of the registration fee provides participants with a copy of the Conference programme, the abstracts book, coffee / tea on each of the days of the Conference, and participation in all of the free social events.
In July 1997, the programme details will be mailed to all those who have registered and made payment. The full programme will also be made available on the ESDP site on Internet. Details of the registration costs are as follows:
Members of ESDP | F.F. 700 |
Non members | F.F. 800 |
Students | F.F. 400 |
accompanying persons | F.F. 250 |
Members of ESDP | F.F. 900 |
Non members | F.F. 1000 |
Students | F.F. 600 |
accompanying persons | F.F. 350 |
Take advantage of the reduced fees available for early registrants.
Those wishing to pay student rates should provide evidence of their student status.
Registration fees will not be waived for presenters or organizers.
Please note that those who have not registered and paid by June 1st cannot be included in the programme and abstracts book.
As at preceding Conferences, we will try, as funds allows, to provide partial financial support for participants from developing countries, or countries with currency restrictions and for young post-doctoral colleagues from western Europe. If you wish to apply for this type of help, please, write to the chair of the conference indicating your financial position and the reason why your participation in this meeting is important to you. Please include the title of your presentation(s). Priority for assistance will be given to people whose proposal has been accepted for inclusion in the programme. The quality of the proposal will be used as a criterion for provision of such financial help.
F A Conference Assistance Programme has been established with the help of different agencies. Individual contributions to this fund are welcome. They will be used exclusively to provide supplementary help to Conference attendees who may require assistance; no portion of any contribution will go toward any other costs of the Conference nor for any other purpose than providing assistance to attend the Conference.
Payments should be made in French Francs (F.F.). Credit card (only Visa and Master Card can be accepted), Postal money orders, bank drafts and personal cheques are acceptable, but please note that personal cheques can only be accepted if they are drawn on a French bank. For further information, please see the registration & accommodation form.
All of the above prices do not include handling charges and bank commission, such costs are the responsibility of the payer.
Please to pay such costs to your own bank in order to ensure that you do not have to make additional payment at the Conference.
An official receipt will be mailed to those who have forwarded their full payment and Registration Form. The receipt must be presented at the registration desk, in order to receive the registration package.
In the event that cancellation of registration is necessary , details must be received either by mail or by fax.
If cancellation occurs prior to June 1st 1997, full reimbursement, less bank charges, will be made. After June 1st 1997 the refund will consist of the amount paid less a charge of 350FF to cover administrative, editing and other charges.
In all cases, the date of posting will be regarded as the date of cancellation.
Approximate rate of exchange (March, 1996):
1 US $: 4.72 F.F. ;1 ú: 7.22 F.F. ; 1 D.M.: 3.26 F.F.
Rooms are possible in four categories of hotel or residence.
Throughout the conference, lunches will be available at the University Restaurant. The cost will be 35 F.F. per occasion. These will only be available if preordered and prepaid.
To ease accommodation arrangements, we are able to offer a Conference Package in a Student residence. The details are as follows:
390 F.F.: This includes: 3 nights (Wednesday 3 evening to Saturday 6 afternoon), 3 breakfasts, and 3 lunches
Extended Conference Package: Conference Package + one more night / breakfast included (Tuesday or Saturday).......485 F.F.
Conference Package + two more nights / breakfast included (Tuesday & Saturday).......580 F.F.
A Conference Excursion will be organized on Friday 5th . It includes a guided visit to Mont Saint-Michel and its Abbey as well as a sightseeing tour on the coastal road between Mont Saint-Michel & Saint-Malo, which is also an attractive tourist centre.
After the excursion, the Conference Dinner will be held in Saint-Malo, in a comfortable building facing the sea and with a view of the old walls of the " citÇ corsaire".
Part of the costs of this social event will be paid from the Conference budget. This means that we have been able to restrict the cost of the tour and the dinner to 350 F.F per person.
Several different tours will be available during the Conference itself for accompanying persons before and after the Conference
For further information, please see the registration form.
The Conference fees do not include provision for the insurance of participants against personal injuries, sickness, theft or property damage. This also applies to any event held during the Conference period. Participants and accompanying persons are advised to arrange for such insurance cover as they consider necessary. Neither the Conference Organizing Committee, nor its sponsors nor committee members assume any responsibility for loss, injury or damage to persons or belongings, however caused.
The Conference Secretariat will be pleased to send an official letter of invitation to any scientist making such a request. It is understood that such an invitation is intended to help potential attendees raise travel funds or obtain a visa. It is not a commitment on the part of the Conference to provide any financial support.
Different travel discount fares are being negotiated. But at present, no more definitive information can be given. If you wish to receive information when it becomes available, please call the Conference Secretariat.
Formal dress will not be necessary for any of the social functions of the Conference. During the month of September the weather is usually pleasant in Brittany. The average high is 22 C and the low high is 18 C.
SUBMISSION OF SYMPOSIA, POSTERWORKSHOPS,INDIVIDUAL POSTERS December, 15th 1996
REDUCED FEES March, 15th 1997
REFUNDS FOR REGISTRATION FEES AND CONFERENCE ADVANTAGES June, 1st 1997
INCLUSION IN THE PROGRAMME & ABSTRACTS BOOK June, 1st 1997
APPLICATION FOR ACCOMMODATION IN CITY HOTELS See Accommodation form
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE: Pr. Michel DELEAU
SECRETARIAT: Arnaud METAYER
CONFERENCE ADDRESS
VIIIth EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY Laboratoire de Psychologie du DÇveloppement et de l'Education UniversitÇ de RENNES II 6, Avenue Gaston Berger 35 043 RENNES CÇdex FRANCEAs announced at the Biennial General Meeting at Rennes, the Society is aiming to hold elections for a number of members of Council during the coming winter. This will be the first of a series of three elections whereby, as from the Biennial General Meeting at the 2003 conference, the Officers and Council of the Society will all have been elected by the membership of the Society. In the first election of this series, nominations are required for the President for the period 1999-2001, for the President-Elect who will become President in 2001 and for three members of Council for the period 1999-2005. It is expected that one of the three new members of Council will be asked to act as Membership Secretary with special responsibilities for encouraging new members to join the Society. Those elected to the different positions will take up their responsibilities at the Biennial General Meeting in 1999. The procedures for the election are as follows. Nominations for the President, President-Elect and/or for membership of the Council should be submitted in writing to Sandy Jackson (address details below) by the 12th of January, 1998. Members may nominate more than one person, for example, one person may be nominated for President and up to three others for Council membership. Each nomination must be supported by at least one other member of the Society. (Please note that for the purposes of this election, all who have paid membership fees in the current year (1997) and those who join the Society before the 12th of January 1998 are entitled to nominate candidates or to second such nominations.) Each person who is nominated should prepare a short statement setting out how he/she intends to contribute to the work of the Society during his/her period of office. This statement should be prepared around the time of nomination and sent as soon as possible thereafter to Sandy Jackson. All nominations will be considered by a Nominations committee appointed by the Council. This committee will be chaired by the President, except where nominations for the Presidency are being considered, in which case the President will not attend and another member of the committee will take on the chairmanship. The responsibility of the Nominations committee is to use nominations from the membership to select a final list of candidates for the election itself. The By-Laws of the Society require the committee to base its selection on the need to maintain a European regional and disciplinary balance within the Council. The Nominations committee will select the list of candidates before the 28th of February, 1998. Shortly after that date, election forms will be prepared and sent to all members of the Society by post. Each member of the Society will be entitled to vote for one candidate for the Presidency and for up to three members of Council. Completed voting forms must be returned to Sandy Jackson so as to reach him by the 18th of May. Forms arriving after that date will be considered void. The result of the election will be announced by the 1st of June, at the latest.
Address for nominations, etc.:
Dr. Sandy Jackson,
Secretary ESDP,
Department of Developmental Psychology,
University of Groningen,
Grote Kruisstraat 2/1,
9712 TS Groningen.
The Netherlands
This weekend meeting was held at Loughborough University from September 12th-15th. It was attended by about 150 developmental psychologists, including a significant number from outside of the UK. Delegates enjoyed cosy accommodation in the university "Towers" building - with its splendid views across to Loughborough Cathedral. There was a full academic programme (posters, papers, publishers) and an exotic mixture of entertainment also.
The programme comprised three types of presentation: invited keynote addresses, invited review lectures, and submitted research papers. Mick Billig opened the conference with a discursive re-working of Little Hans. Michael Cole viewed developmental psychology through his cultural lens: characterising a rich theoretical landscape. Michele Grossen reminded us of the institutional dimension that must be incorporated into cultural accounts of educational practice. Karin Aronsson gave a fully-illustrated review of children's' drawing interpreted in a cross-cultural frame. Gustav Jahoda rounded of the meeting with an engaging consideration of moral development as situated in a social context (drawing from a study of moral judgements by young people in Weimer Germany). At these conferences, keynote speakers often deliver and run: it was refreshing to find all five of the speakers on this occasion circulating widely among the delegates and becoming well involved in the informal discussion.
The review lectures were actually reviews "from the (disciplinary) periphery". Becker (social policy) on children as caregivers, Cameron (biology) on growth under stress, Daniels (Education) on Vytgotsky, and Curnock (Paediatrics) on cerebral palsy. I found all of these talks well prepared, well illustrated and excellent value. Unfortunately, few other delegates would have shared this experience: except perhaps for Daniels' talk, these reviews were very poorly attended. I suppose this means the Section will abandon an interesting presentational initiative: given the recurrent complaints about stale conference formats, it is disheartening to discover the extent of resistance to a novel departure.
Research papers and posters gave the usual snapshot of UK preoccupations in developmental psychology. Well, this year it may have been distorted: for many UK people will not have had enough money to go to Rennes and then go to this local meeting the following week. The biennial juxtaposition of these two developmental conferences is unfortunate. Although attendance was up to normal levels for the Loughborough meeting, there were bound to be Section regulars who were absent due to conference fatigue. Committee members put a brave face on their necessary presence, but other distinguished mainstays of conference eccentricity were missed.
The ecology of the event was interesting and effective: lecture rooms decanted delegates into a central poster/refreshment area which facilitated chance conversations and comfortable relaxation around posters, books and biscuits. Coffee was kept constantly refreshed by conference orphans (family relatives of the organisers). Later, these same young people were spotted in gales of mirth as relaxed delegates strutted to a live band on Saturday evening and a disco on Sunday. On Saturday, some bar space was shared with delegates to the British Tinnitus Society meeting - who, as expected, asked for the band to be "turned down" (although others of them invaded the conference pianist's gathering for improvisations after closing time). There was additional entertainment. Apart from tasting the bohemian Loughborough street life, there was the option of dinner on a local steam train service - a sort of Orient Express to Leicester (although lets not forget (and locals do keep reminding you) that Thos. Cook ran his very first public excursion as a trip from Leicester to Loughborough). Also, at the opening reception, we were entertained by an accomplished string quartet (apparently featuring members of the local department disguised in dinner jackets). A refreshing collection of student work from the Loughborough Art College was also mounted for this reception.
Overall, it seemed a success. Certainly, delegates did mingle well - in the conference arena, in the bar, and as they enjoyed the lashings of custard in Towers dining room. However, a good deal of the flavour can still be captured if you missed it (the conference I mean, not the custard) - simply point your internet browser towards http://devpsy.lboro.ac.uk/conf/
Hatchjaw
