Pierre Mendès-France University

About: Pierre Mendès-France University is a education organization based out in Saint-Martin-d'Hères, France. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Lexical decision task & Visual perception. The organization has 432 authors who have published 560 publications receiving 14282 citations. The organization is also known as: Pierre Mendes-France University & Grenoble II.

Why Firms Comply Voluntarily with IAS: an Empirical Analysis with Swiss Data

Abstract: In Switzerland, the use of International Accounting Standards (IAS) is allowed as an alternative to national rules for the preparation of consolidated financial statements. This opportunity has been widely used, since about 40% of Swiss listed companies do comply with IAS. Because of permissiveness and low disclosure requirements of the Swiss accounting regulation, compliance with IAS implies additional disclosure and renouncement of a considerable discretion in accounting practices. The aim of this paper is to determine the characteristics of firms which voluntarily choose to incur theses additional costs. On the basis of prior literature on voluntary disclosure and auditing, we formulate a set of hypotheses which are tested on a sample of 133 Swiss listed companies. The results suggest that political costs and pressures from outside markets play a major role in the decision to apply IAS but do not validate the hypothesis that voluntary compliance with stringent accounting standards is used to solve monitoring problems resulting from agency relationships between managers, stockholders and creditors.

A connectionist multiple-trace memory model for polysyllabic word reading.

Abstract: A connectionist feedforward network implementing a mapping from orthography to phonology is described. The model develops a view of the reading system that accounts for both irregular word and pseudoword reading without relying on any system of explicit or implicit conversion rules. The model assumes, however, that reading is supported by 2 procedures that work successively: a global procedure using knowledge about entire words and an analytic procedure based on the activation of word syllabic segments. The model provides an account of the basic effects that characterize human skilled reading performance including a frequency by consistency interaction and a position-of-irregularity effect. Furthermore, early in training, the network shows a performance similar to that of less skilled readers. It also offers a plausible account of the patterns of acquired phonological and surface dyslexia when lesioned in different ways.

Predictors of developmental dyslexia in European orthographies with varying complexity

Abstract: Background: The relationship between phoneme awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), verbal short-term/working memory (ST/WM) and diagnostic category is investigated in control and dyslexic children, and the extent to which this depends on orthographic complexity. Methods: General cognitive, phonological and literacy skills were tested in 1,138 control and 1,114 dyslexic children speaking six different languages spanning a large range of orthographic complexity (Finnish, Hungarian, German, Dutch, French, English). Results: Phoneme deletion and RAN were strong concurrent predictors of developmental dyslexia, while verbal ST/WM and general verbal abilities played a comparatively minor role. In logistic regression models, more participants were classified correctly when orthography was more complex. The impact of phoneme deletion and RAN-digits was stronger in complex than in less complex orthographies. Conclusions: Findings are largely consistent with the literature on predictors of dyslexia and literacy skills, while uniquely demonstrating how orthographic complexity exacerbates some symptoms of dyslexia.

The Cognitive Deficits Responsible for Developmental Dyslexia: Review of Evidence for a Selective Visual Attentional Disorder.

Abstract: There is strong converging evidence suggesting that developmental dyslexia stems from a phonological processing deficit. However, this hypothesis has been challenged by the widely admitted heterogeneity of the dyslexic population, and by several reports of dyslexic individuals with no apparent phonological deficit. In this paper, we discuss the hypothesis that a phonological deficit may not be the only core deficit in developmental dyslexia and critically examine several alternative proposals. To establish that a given cognitive deficit is causally related to dyslexia, at least two conditions need to be fulfilled. First, the hypothesized deficit needs to be associated with developmental dyslexia independently of additional phonological deficits. Second, the hypothesized deficit must predict reading ability, on both empirical and theoretical grounds. While most current hypotheses fail to fulfil these criteria, we argue that the visual attentional deficit hypothesis does. Recent studies providing evidence for the independence of phonological and visual attentional deficits in developmental dyslexia are reviewed together with empirical data showing that phonological and visual attentional processing skills contribute independently to reading performance. A theoretical model of reading is outlined in support of a causal link between a visual attentional disorder and a failure in reading acquisition. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.