Motherese is a form of affective prosody injected automatically into speech during caregiving solicitude. Affective prosody is the aspect of language that conveys emotion by changes in tone, rhythm, and emphasis during speech. It is a neocortical function that allows graded, highly varied vocal emotional expression. Other mammals have only rigid, species-specific, limbic vocalizations. Thus, encephalization with corticalization is necessary for the evolution of progressively complex vocal emotional displays.

The relationship between a biological process and a behavioral trait indicates a proximate mechanism by which natural selection can act. In that context, examining an aspect of infant health is one method of investigating the adaptive significance of infant-directed speech (ID speech), and it could help to explain the widespread use of this communication style. The correlation between infant growth and infant-directed speech is positive and significant, and provides a vehicle for testing evolutionary history hypotheses.

Building on the success of her classic, bestselling book, Change Your Questions, Change Your Life (over 100,000 copies sold), Marilee Adams shows in this new book how teachers and other education professionals can change their own and their students' lives by developing an active, inquiring mindset and igniting a lifelong love of learning.

Cet ouvrage prend pour objet les effets de la féminisation massive des activités équestres depuis l’après-guerre, tant au niveau statistique que du point de vue du contenu des pratiques. Le sous-titre choisi établit une certaine ambigüité sur la démarche adoptée : il pose la question d’une « avancée », c’est à dire d’un progrès que constituerait ou non la présence des femmes dans le domaine équestre. « Avancée » (mise ici en doute) pour qui? Pour les femmes? Pour les chevaux? (...) Pour l’activi... (shrink)

Alliant l’étude de sources historiques et les méthodes anthropologiques d’analyse de terrains et d’entretiens, Lucy Green étudie le rapport à la musique des femmes sous l’angle de l’éducation féminine, entendue comme éducation à la féminité, renforcée ou menacée par la pratique musicale. Dans la première partie de l’ouvrage, l’auteur se penche sur la signification culturelle et sociale des pratiques musicales féminines à travers l’histoire. S’interrogeant sur la tendance de ces dernières à tr...

L’ouvrage de Marie Buscatto constitue une riche contribution à l’étude des rapports sociaux de sexe à l’intérieur du monde du travail et de l’art. Au travers d’une étude ethnographique de près de dix ans dans le milieu du jazz français, par des entretiens, des questionnaires et l’analyse de la presse spécialisée, l’auteur met en lumière la double ségrégation dont les artistes féminines (seulement 8% de la « population jazz ») font l’objet au sein de ce microcosme. Ségrégation de type horizont...

Governmental policies are encouraging companies to reduce the environmental impact of their packaging and particularly overpackaging, which raises a broad range of ethical considerations. However, experiments comparing an overpackaged product with a non-overpackaged product have shown that eliminating overpackaging may have a negative influence on brand image and consumer purchase intention. In this paper, we draw on attribution theory to examine the influence of the absence of overpackaging on consumers’ response, depending on their environmental consciousness and the absence of overpackaging (...) on the competing product. An experiment conducted on 218 consumers demonstrates that non-overpackaging for a target product only adversely affects purchase intention among non-environmentally conscious consumers when competing products are overpackaged. These results lead to optimistic recommendations for marketing managers and public policy makers to help them solve the ethical dilemma linked to overpackaging. (shrink)

Background: Researchers and clinicians have often cited a strong relationship between individuals with Williams syndrome and music. This review systematically identified, analyzed, and synthesized research findings related to Williams syndrome and music. Methods: Thirty-one articles were identified that examined this relationship and were divided into seven areas. This process covered a diverse array of methodologies, with aims to: 1) report current findings; 2) assess methodological quality; and 3) discuss the potential implications and considerations for the clinical use of music with (...) this population. Results: Results indicate that individuals with WS demonstrate a high degree of variability in skill and engagement in music, presenting with musical skills that are more in line with their cognitive abilities than chronological age. Musical strengths for this population appear to be based more in musicality and expressivity than formal musical skills, which are expressed through a heightened interest in music, a greater propensity toward musical activities, and a heightened emotional responsiveness to music. Individuals with WS seem to conserve the overall structure of musical phrases better than they can discriminate or reproduce them exactly. The affinity for music often found in this population may be rooted in atypical auditory processing, autonomic irregularities, and differential neurobiology. Conclusions: More studies are needed to explore how this affinity for music can be harnessed in clinical and educational interventions. (shrink)

Ensemble d’articles et de comptes rendus de tables rondes, cet ouvrage est le fruit d’un colloque organisé par l’IRCAM, l’occasion d’une rencontre entre chercheurs et musiciennes. De nombreux sujets sont abordés dans cette étude pluridisciplinaire où les femmes sont replacées dans leur contexte historique, social et culturel original, et où le fait musical est entendu comme révélateur du fonctionnement d’une société. Par de multiples portes d’entrée, cette réflexion d’ensemble aborde ainsi le...

Richement documenté et annoté, doté d’une impressionnante bibliographie et d’un catalogue de référence, l’ouvrage offre au lecteur une approche et des réflexions renouvelées sur le thème du rapport des femmes à la création musicale. Analysant la période du XIIIe et du début du XIXe siècles en France, Letzer et Adelson affirment en effet que les compositrices et librettistes d’opéra et de théâtre musical n’étaient pas des inconnues pour leurs contemporains, ni même de totales exceptions comme...

The use of brain scanning now dominates the cognitive sciences, but important questions remain to be answered about what, exactly, scanning can tell us. One corner of cognitive science that has been transformed by the use of neuroimaging, and that a scanning enthusiast might point to as proof of scanning's importance, is the study of face perception. Against this view, we argue that the use of scanning has, in fact, told us rather little about the information processing underlying face perception (...) and that it is not likely to tell us much more. (shrink)