Being able to predict the goal of other people’s actions is an important aspect of our daily lives. This ability allows us to interact timely with others and adjust our behaviour appropriately. The general aim of the present thesis was to explore which processes best explain our ability to predict other people’s action goals during development. There are different theories concerning this ability. Some stress the fact that observation of others actions activate the same areas of the brain involved in our own action production, this way helping us to understand what they are doing. Other theories suggest that we understand actions independently of our own motor proficiency. For example, the ability to predict other peoples’ action goals could be based on visual experience seeing others actions acquired trough time or on the assumption that actions will be performed in a rational way. The studies included in this thesis use eye tracking to study infants’ and adults’ action prediction during observation of goal directed actions. Prediction is operationalized as predictive gaze shifts to the goal of the action. Study I showed that infants are sensitive to the functionality of hand configuration and predict the goal of reaching actions but not moving fists. Fourteen-month-olds also looked earlier to the goal of reaching actions when the goal was to contain rather than displace, indicating that the overarching goal (contain/displace) impact the ability to predict local action goals, in this case the goal of the initial reaching action. Study II demonstrated that 6-month-olds, an age when infants have not yet started placing objects into containers, did not look to the container ahead of time when observing another person placing objects into containers. They did, however, look to the container ahead of time when a ball was moving on its own. The results thus indicate that different processes might be used to predict human actions and other events. Study III showed that 8-month-old infants in China looked to the mouth of an actor eating with chopsticks ahead of time but not when the actor was eating with a spoon. Swedish infants on the other hand looked predictively to the mouth when the actor was eating with a spoon but not with chopsticks. This study demonstrates that prediction of others’ goal directed actions is not simply based on own motor ability (as assumed in Study I and II) but rather on a combination of visual/cultural experience and own motor ability. The results of these studies suggest that both own motor proficiency as well as visual experience with observing similar actions is necessary for our ability to predict other people’s action goals. These results are discusses in the light of a newer account of the mirror neuron system taking both statistical regularities in the environment and own motor capabilities into account.

Thesis (M.A.)--Concordia University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thèse (D. en psychologie)--Université du Québec à Montréal, 2005. / En tête du titre: Université du Québec à Montréal. Bibliogr.: f. [167]-174. Publié aussi en version électronique.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Bowling Green State University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-142). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

Univ., Diss.--Göttingen, 2004.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Bowling Green State University, 2007. / Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 142 p. Includes bibliographical references.

La thèse étudie comment les enjeux économiques de l’innovation se formulent dans l’action publique territoriale,en adoptant une démarche comparative et en s’appuyant sur une enquête réalisée dans deux régionsmétropolitaines en Europe : l’Ile-de-France et la Lombardie. La recherche est conduite en problématisant lagouvernance territoriale de l’innovation sur la base d’un cadre théorique élaboré à la croisée des travaux descience politique sur les politiques territoriales et de sciences sociales sur l’innovation. L’analyse est dès lorscentrée sur les processus institutionnels, les réseaux d’acteurs et les relations de pouvoir. Les données mobiliséesportent sur les initiatives et les aides se déployant en chacune des régions étudiées en faveur de l’innovation, enparticulier dans le domaine du numérique. La comparaison entre l’Ile-de-France et la Lombardie vise à faireressortir les spécificités socio-politiques de chacune des deux situations territoriales en privilégiant deux champsd’investigation : les usages de l’innovation en tant que catégorie d’action publique transnationale et régionalisée,et les mobilisations collectives se structurant en référence aux enjeux du développement métropolitain à Paris età Milan. Tandis qu’en Ile-de-France les politiques publiques font figure de vecteurs pour la territorialisation desacteurs de l’innovation, la Lombardie donne à voir l’affirmation d’un leadership universitaire appuyé par lespouvoirs locaux. Par-delà ces différences, les deux cas permettent d’observer certaines modalités locales dudéveloppement de l’économie de la connaissance et interrogent le phénomène de politisation des enjeux etacteurs de l’innovation. / This thesis examines how economic issues of innovation are formulated in territorial public action, by adopting acomparative approach and based on a survey conducted in two metropolitan areas in Europe: Ile-de-France andLombardy. Research was conducted by problematizing territorial governance of innovation using a theoreticalframework developed by combining aspects of two fields : political science (territorial policies) and socialsciences (science, tecnology and innovation studies). The analysis is therefore focused on institutional processes,networks of actors and power relations. The data used concerns initiatives and aid deployed in each of the studyareas to promote innovation, especially in the digital field. The comparison between Ile-de-France andLombardy aims to highlight the socio-political specificities of the two territorial situations by focusing on twodistinct areas of investigation : innovation as a category of transnational and regional public action, andmobilisation developed in response to the local challenges of metropolitan development in Paris and Milan.While in Ile-de-France public policies promote the territorialization of innovation actors, Lombardy privilegesuniversity leadership supported by local authorities. Beyond these differences, the two cases demonstrate somelocal ways of developing the knowledge economy and question the phenomenon of politicization of issues andactors of innovation.

L’action civile en contrefaçon de droit d’auteur a une nature juridique duale : elle est d’une part une action défensive d’un droit subjectif, plus précisément une action réelle (comparable à l’action en revendication), d’autre part une action en responsabilité civile délictuelle. Or de cette dualité naît une contradiction. En tant qu’action défensive, l’action est vouée à l’automaticité, la contrefaçon devant être la seule condition de son succès, à l’exclusion de la faute et du préjudice. Mais en tant qu’action en responsabilité, elle est vouée à la casuistique, au respect des conditions contenues aux articles 1382 et suivants du Code civil. Face à cette contradiction, le droit positif tend à privilégier la nature réelle de l’action. Depuis les années quatre-vingt-dix, en effet, les règles classiques de la responsabilité n’ont cessé d’être évincées du procès en contrefaçon. En guise de justification, on évoque parfois le caractère « lucratif » de la contrefaçon et la nécessité qu’il y aurait de s’affranchir de règles faisant le jeu du contrefacteur - en particulier celle de la réparation intégrale. Il reste que cette évolution est critiquable, puisqu’elle crée un hiatus entre le régime de l’action et sa nature juridique. Au contraire, il faut admettre un principe dit « de variabilité », en vertu duquel le régime de l’action varie selon l’objet considéré : automatique lorsqu’elle vise à faire cesser la contrefaçon, elle doit renouer avec les règles classiques de la responsabilité lorsqu’elle vise la réparation. Quant au caractère lucratif de la contrefaçon, sa neutralisation ne doit pas passer par le forçage du principe de la réparation intégrale, mais par la consécration d’un tiers objet autonome : la restitution des gains illicites. Ainsi, l’action en contrefaçon serait efficace, sans pour autant violer sa nature, ni la tradition juridique française. / The legal nature of the civil action for copyright infringement is dual. This is on the one hand a defensive action of a subjective right, more precisely an action in rem (which can be compared to the action for recovery, "action en revendication"), and on the other hand a civil tort action. However, from such dualism arises a contradiction. As a defensive action, it has propensity to be automatic and the infringement shall be the sole criterion of its achievement, excluding any fault or damage. Nonetheless, as an action for civil liability, it should be analysed on a case by case basis, taking into account all criteria provided by the French civil code in Articles 1382 et seq. In the face of such inconsistency, substantive law tends to emphasise the in rem nature of this action for copyright infringement. Indeed, since the 90's, the classic rules of civil liability have continuously been ousted from infringement lawsuits. The lucrative nature of the infringement and the necessity to disregard some rules in favour of the infringer, in particular the principle of full compensation ("réparation intégrale") for the damage caused are often brought forward to justify this tendency. Nevertheless, such evolution is questionable as it generates a hiatus between the legal regime and the legal nature of the civil action for copyright infringement. On the contrary, a principle of "variability" should be acknowledged, according to which the legal regime of such action would vary depending on its purpose. In the event the action would aim at stopping the infringement, it should be automatic. However, where the action would aim at seeking compensation for the damage suffered, the classic rules of civil liability should apply. With regard to the lucrative nature of the infringement, it should not be neutralised by the forcing of the principle of full compensation, but rather by the restitution of illegal profits. As such, the infringement action would be effective, without violating neither its legal nature nor the French legal tradition.

We examined the effect of changing from an internally prepared motor plan to a revised action which potentially differed from the original plan along two dimensions: wrist orientation (horizontal or vertical) and left/right hand. Participants were instructed to prepare a particular hand grasp action and then were cued either to execute that motor plan or cancel it and plan a new action. In Experiments I and II, if the change from the original motor plan to an alternate response implied an action different from the prepared one, there was a slowing in response time. Moreover, if there was a change, maintaining the originally planned wrist orientation produced faster responses than changing orientation, but only if the response hand remained constant between planned and alternate actions and the cue was an image of a hand depicting a goal posture. In Experiment III, when the alternate action was cued by an image of an object inviting a particular grasp action, there was transfer only of the hand feature. In a final experiment, participants switched from a prepared action to naming a manipulable object. The motor features of the object differed from the original motor plan in the same way as in previous experiments. No effect of the previously cancelled motor plan was seen on naming latencies. These results elucidate the nature of motor plans and the role of motor actions in the representation of objects. / Graduate

La mise en place d’un comportement semble en grande partie déterminée par la capacité du système cognitif à intégrer, au sein de représentations cohérentes, le flux continu d’informations provenant de l’environnement. Les travaux réalisés lors de cette thèse viennent modérer ce lien de causalité, et apportent des éléments en faveur d’une co-détermination de l’intégration des informations perceptives et de la mise en place d’un comportement moteur. En d’autres termes, cette thèse soutient l’idée que les actions effectuées par un individu ne sont pas seulement le produit d’une activité interne, mais sont aussi et surtout une condition de possibilité de la construction d’une représentation cohérente de nos interactions avec l’environnement.La première étude que nous avons réalisée a permis de mettre en évidence le rôle fonctionnel des réponses motrices dans le processus d’intégration. Dans une seconde étude, nous avons montré que les composants perceptifs et moteurs ne sont pas seulement co-activés lors de l’activité perceptive, mais bien intégrés les uns aux autres au sein d’une même représentation sensorimotrice. Enfin, notre dernière étude indique que la construction de telles représentations pourrait dépendre de l’intégration des conséquences sensorimotrices de nos actions. Pris dans une perspective plus large, l’ensemble de ces résultats souligne le rôle fondamental de l’action dans la cognition, et suggère finalement de reconsidérer la distinction stricte que nous opérons habituellement entre les éléments perceptifs et moteurs qui composent nos représentations. / The ability to integrate the vast amount of information coming from the environmentinto a coherent representation is usually considered a necessary conditionfor any behavior to take place. In this Ph.D. thesis, our proposal is to moderatethis apparent causality, and to bring new elements that support the idea of a codeterminationof the building of sensorimotor representations and the execution ofmotor behavior. In other words, we propose that actions are not only adapted toexternal constraints through an internal activity, but also contribute to the buildingof coherent representations of the world. Therefore, we made a series of experimentsto highlight the role of motor activity in the process of binding perceptiveinformation. The first study examined the functional role of motor responses inthe integration process, which were found to be a necessary condition for an integrationto take place. The second study investigated the link between perceptiveand motor components. The results showed that both are indeed integrated into acommon sensorimotor representation. Our final study shed light on the fact thatbuilding sensorimotor representations seems to rely on the integration of sensorimotoraction-effects. Taken together, our results point toward the critical role of motoractivity in cognitive processes, and question the relevance of distinguishing motorcomponents from perceptive ones.