Text in Afrikaans / A study of the philosophical and historical foundations of infinity highlights the problematic development of infinity. Aristotle distinguished between potential and actual infinity, but rejected the latter. Indeed, the interpretation of actual infinity leads to contradictions as seen in the paradoxes of Zeno. It is difficult for a human being to understand actual infinity. Our logical schemes are adapted to finite objects and events. Research shows that students focus primarily on infinity as a dynamic or neverending process. Individuals may have contradictory intuitive thoughts at different times without being aware of cognitive conflict. The intuitive thoughts of students about both the actual (at once) infinite and potential (successive) infinity are very complex. The problematic nature of actual infinity and the contradictory intuitive cognition should be the starting point in the teaching of the concept infinity. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Mathematic Education)

La thèse propose un paradigme d’interaction avec la notation musicale complexe pour piano selon une perspective « incarnée » et «située » de l’interprète. Ce paradigme, que je nomme navigation incarnée, s’oppose au paradigme traditionnel d’interprétation textuelle. Le paradigme traditionnel considère un processus de lecture linéaire et hiérarchique, selon lequel la compréhension et l’internalisation du texte musical sont les conditions préalables pour l’application de la technique instrumentale, permettant par la suite une interprétation personnelle. À la place de ce paradigme, je propose de traiter la notation musicale comme un élément dynamique, non linéaire, et à la fois incarné et externalisé. Dans une deuxième phase, le paradigme proposé devient la base du développement d’outils adaptés au projet de la navigation incarnée et de diverses applications, incluant l’analyse de la performance, l’apprentissage incarné et interactif, la composition musicale et l’improvisation. / This thesis proposes a performer-specific paradigm of embodied interaction with complex piano notation. This paradigm, which I term embodied navigation, extends and even confronts the traditional paradigm of textual interpretation. The latter assumes a linear and hierarchical process, whereby internalized understanding of the musical text is considered a prerequisite of instrumental technique towards personal interpretation. In lieu of that, I advocate for a dynamic, non-linear, embodied and external processing of music notation. At a second stage, the proposed paradigm serves as the basis for the development of methodologies and customized tools for a range of applications, including: performance analysis, embodied interactive learning, contemporary composition, free improvisation and piano pedagogy.

Les actions que les individus réalisent dans leur vie quotidienne sont soumises à un ensemble de contraintes physiques et sociales qui donnent un cadre à leur réalisation. Le but de cette thèse était d'apporter des arguments empiriques en faveur d'une approche intégrative selon laquelle ces contraintes influencent la perception visuelle de l'espace. Nous avons pour cela réalisé deux études comportementales sur l'influence des contraintes physiques sur la perception des distances (Articles 1 et 2) et une étude sur la perception d'une de ces contraintes (Article 3). Nous avons également réalisé trois études comportementales sur l'influence des contraintes sociales sur la perception de l'espace et des possibilités d'action (Articles 4, 5 et 7) ainsi qu'une simulation en robotique pour étudier davantage une de ces contraintes (Article 6). À première vue, nos résultats semblent indiquer que les contraintes des actions influencent la perception de l'espace. Cependant, des limites méthodologiques nous incitent à nuancer cette interprétation dans la mesure où certains de nos résultats pourraient refléter des biais de demande expérimentale plutôt que des effets perceptifs. / Actions that people can perform in their everyday life are subject to a lot of constraints which limit their ability to perform these actions. The main purpose of these doctoral researches was to provide empirical evidences for an integrative approach according to which these constraints influence the visual perception of space. We conducted two behavioral experiments to investigate the influence of physical constraints on distance perception (Papers 1 and 2) and one experiment to investigate the perception of one of these constraints (Paper 3). We also conducted three other behavioral experiments to investigate the potential influence of social constraints on the perception of space and affordances (Papers 4, 5, and 7) and one robotic simulation to gain more insight into one of these constraints (Paper 6). Our results seem to provide some supports to the hypothesis that action constraints influence the visual perception of space. However, some methodological flaws prevent us to draw firm conclusions about this general hypothesis given that some of our results might be better explained in terms of experimental demand biases rather than in terms of perceptual effects.

This thesis is a literature study on how existing research on embodied tool use may support the use of the use of the computer mouse within three dimensional environments, followed by an analysis of a typical scenario in the use of three dimensional environment. Problems with interaction in this domain are well known to designers of 3d programs but not well understood, which results in programs in which mouse controllers are used to control three dimensional objects being more difficult to learn and less efficient to use than would be possible if the interaction was better understood. The problems are often identified by their symptoms, such as the drag-threshold problem, picking problem, and the object rotation/viewpoint management problem, but this thesis will explore what the cause of those problems is, and identifies them all as a single cognitive problem which is found to be caused by a rift between the functioning of the two dimensional tool in use (the mouse and cursor) and the simulated three dimensional environment with which the cursor is interacting. Analyses are performed on a scenario, and result in a pinpointing of the problem and possible solutions to the interaction part of the problem (with design guidelines emerging), as well as finding the possibility that the cognitive roots of the problem result from an incompatibility between body-schema frames of reference for movement between the two dimensional parts of the action and the three dimensional part of the action.

In recent years, research on embodied cognition has inspired a number of studies on multimedia learning and instructional psychology. However, in contrast to traditional research on education and multimedia learning, studies on embodied learning (i.e., focusing on bodily action and perception in the context of education) in some cases pose new problems for the measurement of cognitive load. This review provides an overview over recent studies on embodied learning in which cognitive load was measured using surveys, behavioral data, or physiological measures. The different methods are assessed in terms of their success in finding differences of cognitive load in embodied learning scenarios. At the same time, we highlight the most important challenges for researchers aiming to include these measures into their study designs. The main issues we identified are: (1) Subjective measures must be appropriately phrased to be useful for embodied learning; (2) recent findings indicate potentials as well as problematic aspects of dual-task measures; (3) the use of physiological measures offers great potential, but may require mobile equipment in the context of embodied scenarios; (4) meta-cognitive measures can be useful extensions of cognitive load measurement for embodied learning.

Plusieurs travaux ont montré que les aires cortico-motrices, localisées dans le cortex frontal et responsables des mouvements volontaires, pouvaient être impliquées dans le processus de compréhension de mots d'action. De ce point de vue, il a été rapporté que la performance d'un acte moteur simple (e.g.: attraper un objet) pouvait être améliorée par la prononciation, la lecture ou l'écoute de mots évoquant une action. Nous avons approché la relation entre parole et action à travers l'étude de l'effet de verbes d'action ainsi que d'autres stimuli cognitifs, l'imagerie kinesthésique (IK) et la soustraction mentale (SM), sur la performance d'un acte moteur complexe, le Squat Vertical Jump (SVJ, ou saut vertical accroupi). Nous avons mesuré la hauteur du SVJ chez des hommes (7 expériences, n = 114) et des femmes (2 expériences, n = 41) à l'aide de deux systèmes de mesure, l'Optojump® et le Myotest®. Les résultats ont montré que la prononciation silencieuse et à haute voix du verbe d'action spécifique au SVJ (saute, conjugué à la première personne de l'impératif), ainsi que l'IK et la SM, améliorent significativement la performance du saut, chez les hommes (jusqu'à + 2,7 cm) et, de manière moins prononcée, chez les femmes (jusqu'à + 1 cm dans 2 expériences). Le reste des résultats obtenus avec les hommes ont indiqué que la prononciation du verbe d'action non spécifique au saut (pince) augmente également la hauteur en SVJ, alors que la prononciation ou l'écoute d'autres verbes sans lien avec le saut (lèche, bouge) n'ont pas eu d'effet significatif sur le SVJ. C'est également le cas du verbe d'état 'rêve et d'un verbe incompréhensible par les sujets (tiào : saute en Chinois) ou encore des verbes qui contredisent et/ou qui s'opposent au déroulement de l'action de sauter (tombe et stoppe). La hauteur du saut a été par ailleurs significativement impactée lorsque les sujets ont prononcé des verbes à fort attributs émotifs (gagne et son antonyme perds) / Several studies have shown that cortical motor areas, located in the frontal cortex and responsible for voluntary movement, might be involved in the process of understanding action words. From this point of view, it has been reported that the performance of a simple motor act (e.g.: catching an object) might be improved by the pronunciation, reading or listening to words referring to the action. We approached the relationship between speech and action through the study of the effect of action verbs and other cognitive stimuli, kinesthetic imagery (KI) and mental subtraction (MS), upon the performance of a complex motor act, the Squat vertical jump (SVJ). We measured the height of SVJ in young naive men (7 experiments, n = 114) and women (2 experiments, n = 41) using an Optojump® and a Myotest® apparatuses. The results showed that the silent and loud pronunciation of specific action verb to SVJ (jump), the KI and the MS improved significantly the performance of the movement, in men (up to 2.7 cm) but less in women (up to + 1 cm in the 2 experiments). The results of other experiments obtained with men indicated that pronunciation of the action verb nonspecific to the jump (pinch) increased also the SVJ performance, while the pronunciation or listening to other verbs unrelated to the jump (Jick, move) had no significant effect on the SVJ. A meaningless verb for the French subjects (tiao = jump in Chinese) showed, in turn, no effect as did dream, faJJ and stop. The verb win improved significantly the SVJ height as much as its antonym Jose, thus suggesting a possible influence of affects in the subjects' performance. It appears that the effects of the specific action verb jump did seem effective but not totally exclusive for the enhancement of the SVJ performance, since non-linguistic stimuli (IK) or unrelated to action (MS) may have had a positive effect on the improvement in motor performance. Moreover verbs referring to emotion, unrelated to action, increased the height of SVJ similarly to the specific action verb jump. The results led us to consider the hypothesis that improving the performance of a complex gesture is dependent, a minima, upon the individual's intention, attention, emotions and also, and perhaps most importantly, concepts (we call concepts, the mental representations) as they may be induced by the cerebral processing of words

La directionnalité est une composante perceptivo-motrice et culturellement déterminée qui intervient de façon prééminente dans l’acquisition initiale de l’écriture. Cette thèse visait à apporter des données empiriques et des éclairages théoriques nouveaux sur 1) son évolution au cours du développement et, 2) sa contribution à la production et à la reconnaissance des formes de lettres. Ces deux axes de recherche ont été déclinés en cinq études. Une première étude investiguait le poids de l’influence culturelle sur la directionnalité graphique au long du développement. Elle permettait de comparer les performances de tracé chez des enfants âgés de 5 à 9 ans dans des conditions où des contraintes biomécaniques, syntaxiques et sémantiques variaient. Les résultats faisaient apparaître un renforcement de l’influence culturelle sur la directionnalité graphique à partir de 6 ans. Cependant, les enfants les plus âgés (9 ans) se montraient capables d’adopter des procédures plus flexibles et de se désengager de contraintes culturelles afin de satisfaire des contraintes contextuelles. La deuxième étude examinait l’évolution développementale de la directionnalité de l’écrit chez des enfants âgés de 4 à 11 ans en comparant la production de formes communes à l’écriture et au dessin. Les résultats obtenus mettaient en évidence une acquisition synchrone des invariants universels (i.e., l’écriture est uni-directionnelle) et des spécificités culturelles du système d’écriture (i.e., la langue est transcrite de gauche à droite). Dans le deuxième axe de recherche, deux études avaient pour objectif de mettre à l’épreuve des faits des hypothèses explicatives récentes de l’écriture en miroir dans l’acquisition initiale et typique de l’écrit. La comparaison de productions en temps réel et appariées d’écritures en miroir et d’écritures conventionnelles chez des enfants pré-lettrés révélait une implication majeure de la directionnalité de l’écrit et une invariance cinématique. Enfin, la dernière étude a permis de mettre en évidence, à l’aide d’un paradigme d’entrainement, une contribution de la directionnalité de l’écriture au rappel de l’orientation de lettres a été mise en évidence chez des enfants pré-lettrés. Les résultats obtenus sont discutés dans une approche incarnée de la cognition et des pistes pédagogiques sont amorcées. / Directionality is a crucial perceptual-motor and culturally-based component of early writing acquisition. This research was aimed at providing empirical data and new theoretical insights on 1) its developmental evolution and, 2) its contribution to the production and the recognition of the shapes of letters. Five studies have been devised to fulfill the research objectives.The first study was aimed at investigating how print experience, as a cultural factor, influences directional tendencies in children’s drawing in the interplay with biomechanical, syntactic and semantic factors. Results showed a reinforcement of cultural influence on directional tendencies from 6 years onward. Older children were better able to disengage from a prevalent embodied behavior to meet contextual constraints. The second study examined the specific developmental evolution of writing directionality in children aged from 4 to 11 years while producing the same shapes in both writing and drawing tasks. The results suggested that universal and culture-specific features of writing appear concomitantly and early on in children’s productions. Another two studies were aimed to empirically test competing accounts of mirror writing in preliterate children. On-line productions of paired conventional and mirror writings revealed a predominant role of writing directionality and a kinematic invariance. Finally, a training study showed a contribution of writing directionality to the subsequent recall of the shapes of letters. Results are discussed in terms of embodiment and perspectives in educational settings.

In psychological research, many questionnaires use verbal response scales with vague linguistic terms (e.g., frequency expressions). The words’ meanings can be formalized and evaluated using fuzzy membership functions (MFs), which allow constructing distinct and equidistant response scales. The discriminatory power value of MFs indicates how distinct the functions and, hence, the verbal expressions are. The present manuscript interrogates the threshold of discriminatory power necessary to indicate a sufficient difference in meaning. Using an empirical validation procedure, participants (N = 133) estimated (1) three correspondence values for verbal expressions to determine MFs, and (2) similarities of words by pairwise comparison ratings. Results show a non-linear relationship between discriminatory power and similarity, and fuzzy MFs, as well as the searched-for threshold value for discriminatory power. Implications for the selection of verbal expressions and the construction of verbal categories in questionnaire response scales are discussed.

Spoken communication is only one of many types of human interaction with the environment. The aim of this thesis is to propose a theory of spoken communication based on basic principles of cognition, which govern all our behaviour. To this end, two established theoretical positions are integrated: 1) the skilled intentionality framework (an enactive view of cognition) and 2) a discriminative approach to human communication. According to the resulting theory, communication is a skilful shaping of an interlocutor's envi- ronment which serves to fulfil the agent's positively biased expectations about her own situation. Language is presented as an assemblage of sociomaterial regularities that make this skilful behaviour possible. The suggested perspec- tive is radically action-oriented, in contrast with traditional representational, content-based approaches. The proposed view is then applied to two specific phenomena widely studied within speech sciences (namely categoricality of speech and turn taking) and is confronted with selected empirical findings. Possibilities of empirical testing of the suggested theory are discussed.

L’aphasie est un trouble acquis du langage survenant suite à une lésion cérébrale, le plus souvent suite à un accident vasculaire cérébral. Les conséquences des troubles du langage sont multiples et diminuent de manière importante la qualité de vie des personnes avec aphasie. L’anomie ou manque du mot en est la manifestation la plus fréquente et persistante, et ce, quel que soit le type d’aphasie. Le manque du mot peut porter sur les noms, mais aussi sur les verbes. Ces derniers jouent d’ailleurs un rôle central dans la construction des énoncés. Alors que l’anomie des verbes est plus fréquente que celle des noms, les thérapies les ciblant restent moins nombreuses que celles pour les noms. En accord avec la cognition incarnée et située, l’usage de stratégies sensorimotrices telles que l’exécution du geste ou l’observation de l’action semble pouvoir faciliter la dénomination de verbes. Cependant, les travaux publiés jusqu’à présent ne montrent que très peu d’effet de généralisation aux items non entraînés, qui est pourtant l’objectif clinique à atteindre par excellence. Ces études n’ont utilisé en général qu’une seule de ces stratégies, ne considérant pas l’imagerie mentale pourtant en lien avec le traitement de l’action. De plus, ces études incluent rarement les recommandations issues des neurosciences. L’objectif de ce travail doctoral fut alors (1) d’élaborer une nouvelle thérapie à partir de ces constats théoriques et méthodologiques, (2) d’évaluer son « efficacité » au niveau comportemental et enfin (3) de rechercher les substrats neurofonctionnels associés à la thérapie. Les résultats indiquent une amélioration significative de la dénomination d’actions auprès des 10 participants inclus. Plus important, cette amélioration est également valable pour les verbes non entraînés traduisant un effet de généralisation. De plus, cette amélioration se maintient à deux mois et à six mois après la thérapie. Les analyses neurofonctionnelles, conduites auprès de deux patients, montrent une implication des aires appartenant aux réseaux langagier et sensorimoteur lors de la dénomination d’actions. Enfin, les analyses de connectivité au repos, auprès de quatre participants, suggèrent une meilleure intégration dans les réseaux visuomoteurs et moteurs associés à la dénomination de l’action. Ces données préliminaires indiquent que les changements neurofonctionnels sont associés à la nature de la thérapie combinant des stratégies sensorimotrices pour faciliter la dénomination des verbes. Prises ensemble, ces données s’avèrent très prometteuses quant à l’efficacité de POEM, en particulier à travers l’effet de généralisation. Bien que les échantillons soient modestes, la robustesse des analyses employées et la convergence des résultats avec les données existantes dans la littérature et à travers les modalités d’études (niveau comportemental et neurofonctionnel) permettent d’être optimiste quant aux applications cliniques possibles de cette thérapie. Enfin, les perspectives théoriques, à travers la cognition incarnée, et pratiques, avec les limites et travaux toujours en cours sont discutées au regard de la littérature existante. / Aphasia is a language impairment due to a brain lesion, most often following a stroke. Language impairments lead to multiple negative outcomes and significantly impoverish the quality of life of persons living with aphasia. Anomia is the most frequent and persistent symptom across all kinds of aphasia. Anomia can be observed for nouns, but also for verbs. Moreover, the latter are at the core of the sentences. Despite the fact that verb anomia is more frequent than anomia with nouns, there is much less interventions available to treat verbs’ anomia. Accordingly, with embodied cognition theory, sensorimotor strategies, such as action execution and action observation seem to improve verb naming. However, published studied show only a very limited generalization effect when this effect is the gold standard of clinical practice. These studies are generally based on only one strategy and did not use mental imagery which was found to be related with action processing. Moreover, these studies rarely include recommendations from the work in neuroscience. The present PhD project aims to (1) develop a new sensorimotor therapy taking into account these theoretical and methodological points, (2) evaluate its « efficacy » at a behavioural level, and (3) seek its neurofunctional underpinning functioning. The results reveal a significant improvement of the verb naming performance for the 10 persons with aphasia. More importantly, this improvement is also observed for the untrained verbs signalling a generalization effect. In addition, the effects are still present after two and six months following the end of the therapy. The neurofunctional results, for the two participants included, confirm the involvement of language and sensorimotor areas during action naming. Finally, resting state connectivity analyses performed with four participants suggest higher integration in the visuomotor and motor networks involved in action naming. These preliminary data support the idea that neurofonctional changes are associated with the nature of the therapy combining different sensorimotor strategies to improve verb naming. Taken together, these results are very promising regarding the efficacy of this new therapy, mainly through the generalization effect. Even if the sample size is limited, the robustness of the analyses and the convergence of the results with the existing data of the literature and through the different modalities of the studies (behavioural and neurofunctional) allow to be optimistic for the clinical applications of the therapy. Finally, the theoretical perspectives, with the embodied cognition theory, as well as the practical ones, with the limits of the projects and the ongoing work, are discussed in light of the existing literature.