Corentin GONTHIER

My teaching duties include individual differences, developmental differences, psychometrics, test-based psychological assessment, and statistical modeling.

I teach based on four simple ideas drawn from constructivism:

1. Learning works best when based on clear teaching objectives that are directly related to useful professional skills.
2. Students should be directly confronted with problem situations: it is hard to understand the answer to a question you have not asked yourself yet.
3. Ideas that sound simple to researchers can actually constitute major epistemological obstacles, which should be approached using thought experiments.
4. Fun teaching always works better than formal teaching.

My research is about variability in high-level cognition: what mechanisms can create individual differences or intra-individual differences of performance in complex tasks?

• I am especially interested in differences in intelligence, working memory and cognitive control. This includes normal adult individual differences, pathological individual differences (intellectual disability, specific learning impairments...), and normal cognitive development. I particularly focus on qualitative mechanisms of variability, such as reasoning strategies or different mechanisms of cognitive control.
• As a logical consequence of my interest in variability, I have specialized in psychometrics and test design. I am particularly interested in creating adaptive tasks for reasoning and working memory capacity.
• My interest in the understanding and measurement of variability has also led me to applied statistics. I work on statistical modeling of variability, especially within-subject variability and developmental trajectories, using tools such as profile analysis, mixed models, GAM analyses...

Papers published in peer-reviewed journals: 49
Invited talks: 10
Spoken presentations: 26
Poster presentations: 17
Chapters and proceedings: 7

For a complete list of publications, see: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8573-0413
For full-texts, see: https://cv.hal.science/corentin-gonthier

Most significant research on intelligence:

• Gonthier, C., Harma, K., & Gavornikova-Baligand, Z. (2024). Development of reasoning performance in Raven's matrices is grounded in the development of effective strategy use. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 153(3), 689–705.
• Gonthier, C. (2023). Should intelligence tests be speeded or unspeeded? A brief review of the effects of time pressure on response processes, and an experimental study with Raven's matrices. Journal of Intelligence, 11(6).
• Gonthier, C., & Grégoire, J. (2022). Flynn effects are biased by differential item functioning over time: A test using overlapping items in Wechsler scales. Intelligence, 95.
• Gonthier, C. (2022). Cross-cultural differences in visuo-spatial processing and the culture-fairness of visuo-spatial intelligence tests: An integrative review and a model for matrices tasks. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 7(1).
• Gonthier, C., Grégoire, J., & Besançon, M. (2021). No negative Flynn effect in France: Why variations of intelligence should not be assessed using tests based on cultural knowledge. Intelligence, 84.
• Rivollier, G., Quinton, J.-C., Gonthier, C., & Smeding, A. (2020). Looking with the (computer) mouse: How to unveil problem-solving strategies in matrix reasoning without eye-tracking. Behavior Research Methods, 53, 1081-1096.
• Gonthier, C., & Roulin, J.-L. (2020). Intraindividual strategy shifts in Raven's matrices, and their dependence on working memory capacity and need for cognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149(3), 564-579.
• Gonthier, C., & Thomassin, N. (2015). Strategy use fully mediates the relationship between working memory capacity and Raven’s matrices. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(5), 916-924.

Most significant research on working memory:

• Gonthier, C., & Gavornikova-Baligand, Z. (2023). Is variability in working memory capacity related to differences in the reactivation of memory traces? A test based on the TBRS model. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 85(5), 1582-1599.
• Gonthier, C. (2023). An easy way to improve scoring of memory span tasks: The edit distance, beyond "correct recall in the correct serial position". Behavior Research Methods, 55(4), 2021-2036.
• Aubry, A., Gonthier, C., & Bourdin, B. (2021). Explaining the high working memory capacity of gifted children: Contributions of processing skills and executive control. Acta Psychologica, 218.
• Gonthier, C. (2021). Charting the diversity of strategic processes in visuo-spatial short-term memory. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(2), 294-318.
• Gonthier, C., Aubry, A., & Bourdin, B. (2018). Measuring working memory capacity in children using adaptive tasks: Example validation of an adaptive complex span. Behavior Research Methods, 50(3), 910-921.
• Gonthier, C., Thomassin, N., & Roulin, J.-L. (2016). The Composite Complex Span : French validation of a short working memory task. Behavior Research Methods, 48(1), 233-242.
• Thomassin, N., Gonthier, C., Guerraz, M., & Roulin, J.-L. (2015). The hard fall effect: high working memory capacity leads to a higher, but less robust short-term memory performance. Experimental Psychology, 62(2), 89-97.
• Bagneux, V., Thomassin, N., Gonthier, C., & Roulin, J.-L. (2013). Working memory in the processing of the Iowa Gambling Task : An individual differences approach. PLoS ONE, 8(11) : e81498.

Most significant research on cognitive control:

• Gonthier, C., & Blaye, A. (2022). Preschoolers can be instructed to use proactive control. Cognitive Development, 62.
• Rosales, K. P., Snijder, J.-P., Conway, A. R. A., & Gonthier, C. (2022). Working memory capacity and dual mechanisms of cognitive control: An experimental-correlational approach. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 75(10), 1793-1809.
• Gonthier, C., & Blaye, A. (2021). Preschoolers are capable of fine-grained implicit cognitive control: Evidence from development of the CSPC effect. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 210.
• Gonthier, C., Ambrosi, S., & Blaye, A. (2021). Learning-based before intentional cognitive control: Developmental evidence for a dissociation between implicit and explicit control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 47(10), 1660-1685.
• Bugg, J. M., & Gonthier, C. (2020). List-level control in the flanker task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73(9), 1444-1459.
• Gonthier, C., Zira, M., Colé, P., & Blaye, A. (2019). Evidencing the developmental shift from reactive to proactive control in early childhood, and its relationship to working memory. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 177, 1-16.
• Cooper, S. R., Gonthier, C., Barch, D. M., & Braver, T. S. (2017). The role of psychometrics in individual differences research in cognition: A case study of the AX-CPT. Frontiers in Psychology, 8(1482).
• Gonthier, C., Macnamara, B., Chow, M., Conway, A. R. A., & Braver, T. S. (2016). Inducing proactive and reactive control shifts in the AX-CPT. Frontiers in Psychology, 7(1822).
• Gonthier, C., Braver, T. S., & Bugg, J. M. (2016). Dissociating proactive and reactive control in the Stroop task. Memory and Cognition, 44(5), 778-788.

Further examples of my work:

• Tourreix, E., Besançon, M., & Gonthier, C. (2023). Non-cognitive specificities of intellectually gifted children and adolescents: An integrative review of the literature. Journal of Intelligence.
• Gonthier, C., & Besançon, M. (2022). It is not always better to have more ideas: Serial order and the trade-off between fluency and elaboration in divergent thinking tasks. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.
• Gonthier, C., Longuépée, L., & Bouvard, M. (2016). Sensory processing in low-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorder: Distinct sensory profiles and their relationships with behavioral dysfunction. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46(9), 3078-3089.

For my reviewer profile and a complete list, see : https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8573-0413

I am a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (JEP:LMC), and for the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review (PB&R). I am also an associate editor for Topics in Cognitive Psychology, and a guest editor for the Journal of Intelligence.

I have reviewed over 150 manuscripts, for the following journals :

1. Acta Psychologica
2. Applied Neuropsychology - Child
3. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics (AP&P)
4. Behavioral and Brain Sciences
5. Child Development
6. Cognition
7. Cognitive and Affective Behavioral Neuroscience (CABN)
8. Cognitive Development
9. Cognitive Psychology
10. Cognitive Science
11. Computers and Education
12. Computers in Human Behavior
13. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
14. Developmental Neuropsychology
15. Developmental Psychology
16. Developmental Science
17. European Journal of Developmental Psychology
18. European Journal of Neuroscience
19. European Review of Applied Psychology (ERAP)
20. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
21. Frontiers in Psychology
22. Intelligence
23. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (JADD)
24. Journal of Cognition and Development
25. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology (JECP)
26. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (JEP:G)
27. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance (JEP:HPP)
28. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (JEP:LMC)
29. Journal of Happiness Studies
30. Journal of Intelligence
31. Journal of Neuroscience Research
32. L'Année Psychologique - Topics in Cognitive Psychology
33. Learning and Individual Differences
34. Memory and Cognition
35. Nature Scientific Reports
36. NeuroImage
37. Plos ONE
38. Pratiques Psychologiques
39. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
40. Progress in Neuropsychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry
41. Psychological Research
42. Psychologie Française
43. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts
44. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review (PB&R)
45. Research in Developmental Disabilities
46. SAGE Open
47. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (QJEP)