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Several evidence-based guidelines of rehabilitative intervention for attentional disturbance following acquired brain injury have been published. The author introduced two cutting-edge guidelines: Japan Stroke Society Guideline 2021 for the Treatment of Stroke [Revised version 2023]; and INCOG 2.0 Guideline for Cognitive Rehabilitation Following Traumatic Brain Injury, PartII: Attention and Information Processing Speed (2023). The effect of the cognitive rehabilitation should be evaluated by change of performance in real-world tasks and activities as well as measures of various neuropsychological tests including paced auditory serial addition task (PASAT) and trail making test. Direct attention training such as Attention Process Training (APT) series or computer-based training may be useful especially for stroke patients. Dual-task training may specifically improve multi-tasking performance. Time pressure management can improve speed of performance on everyday tasks for patients with slowed information processing. Metacognitive training using everyday activities may be recommended for mild to moderate impairments. Modifications of environment and/or tasks may also be helpful to decrease errors in daily activities.

Impairment of attention, especially complex attention, appears in the early stage of dementia. Complex attention is one of the six neurocognitive domains, which are disturbed in dementia. Impairment of complex attention promotes symptoms of dementia, difficulties in activities of daily living (ADLs), and disturbed communication in dementia due to Alzheimer disease, Lewy body disease, and cerebrovascular diseases. Despite its importance, research on "impairment of attention in dementia" is scarce. We look forward to future studies addressing this topic. In this article, we emphasized on providing care for ADL and communication for people with dementia, who have attention deficits.

Short-term memory is crucial for higher cognitive functions, yet its storage capacity is severely limited. Thus, it is necessary to selectively retain information relevant to our goals by controlling attention. This is facilitated by working memory, which consists of short-term storage and executive attention. In this review, I introduce the psychological model and measurement tasks of working memory and discuss the significance of attentional control for remembering information appropriately and stably.

Unilateral spatial neglect is the failure of brain-damaged patients to report, respond, or orient to novel or meaningful stimuli presented to the contralateral side of the lesion. This usually involves the right cerebral hemisphere. Neglect presents with no restriction in gaze direction and results in difficulty across various aspects of daily activities, distinguishing it from simple homonymous hemianopia. The basic mechanisms underlying neglect is rightward bias of spatial attention, while non-direction-specific cognitive problems may contribute to clinical expressions of neglect.

The subcategories of attention function have various classification methods. In this section, we have listed subcategories that are easily applicable to neuropsychology, namely selective, sustained, spatial, and divided attention, attentional inhibition, and attention shifting. Among them, selective attention is a function excluding unnecessary information from a myriad of data while selecting essential information. Sustained attention, in contrast, is a function directing attention to information over a certain period and maintaining it during task execution, are the two basic subfunctions in attention. Attentional inhibition, divided attention, and attention shifting are regarded as attentional control functions or executive control of attention, which are closely related with working memory and executive function. However, there is also an overlap observed among these subfunctions. Since our cognitive activities are intertwined with attention functions, it is challenging to purely extract specific attention functions.

Unilateral spatial neglect (USN) is a symptom of unilateral brain damage resulting in failure to report sensory phenomena in the contra-lesional space. It is associated with motor impairment as well as sensory deficits. Recent research suggests that USN, may be caused by a disruption in the interhemispheric balance of the visual attention network. Based on this hypothesis, non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS), such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), is utilized in the rehabilitation of USN patients. Presently, inhibitory stimulation by continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) on contra-lesional parietal cortex are believed to be the most promising method. Conversely, compensation by attentional network of the non-lesioned hemisphere plays an important role in the recovery of USN. Recent imaging studies revealed that functional and structural connectivity of attentional networks within a lesioned hemisphere and between lesioned and non-lesioned hemispheres affects spontaneous recovery and effectiveness of rehabilitation approach such as prism adaptation therapy. These findings are useful in elucidating the pathophysiology of USN and predicting functional outcome. Furthermore, we hope that understanding the pathophysiology will enable the development of new rehabilitation strategies and appropriate treatment selection.

Classical evidence for neural mechanisms of attention resulted from findings that attention to sensory signals modulated sensory neuronal responses in both humans and non-human animals. These findings led scientists to propose a variety of sophisticated information-processing and mathematical models of attention. Recent advances in neuroimaging and studies including hemispatial neglect and attention deficits in patients have also facilitated understanding of neural mechanisms of attention in terms of functional specialization and large-scale brain network. Here, we reviewed neural mechanisms of attention from classical literature up to recent advances.

The concept of attention in cognitive science encompasses a bidirectional nature: bottom-up attention based on the salience of sensory stimuli, and top-down attention, which involves voluntary control over aspects such as intensity, allocation, selectivity, and duration. Top-down attention is believed to be primarily realized through the frontal lobes that monitor on-going information processing. This monitoring helps detect situations requiring intervention and manipulates lower-level information processing systems as a part of executive functions.

Visual search is a useful experimental paradigm investigating various aspects of attention. For efficient search, participants must avoid revisiting previously viewed objects. Inhibitory tagging and inhibition of return are phenomena related to this process, but their neural mechanisms are yet to be elucidated. Recent studies have shown that the rate of revisit behavior during visual search correlates with working memory capacity. This suggests that top-down signals from the frontal executive system alter the priority map that guides attention and eye movements. With this in mind, we have developed a novel visual search paradigm with many identical distractors and an evaluation model that assesses multiple parameters of working memory. The model incorporated memory capacity, memory decay, and utility rate, and when applied to data obtained from experimental animals, these parameters could be reliably evaluated. Furthermore, using the behavioral paradigm and model, we found that systemic administration of subanesthetic dose of ketamine decreased utility rate and memory capacity, while nicotine administration increased utility rate. Since our behavioral paradigm does not require complex instruction, it can be applied to a variety of patients in future clinical studies.

Feeling emotional responses, such as heartbeat and respiration, influence subjective feeling of emotion. The role of interoception as a link in this relationship has been the focus of much attention. The predictive coding model is suggested for understanding the mechanism of interoception, and the model is also closely related to allostasis. This paper introduces a perspective on emotion from the allostasis mediated by interoception.

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) shows lesser memory impairment and more severe visuospatial disability than Alzheimer disease (AD). Although deficits in both consolidation and retrieval underlie the memory impairment, retrieval deficit is predominant in DLB. Visuospatial dysfunctions in DLB are related to the impairments in both ventral and dorsal streams of higher visual information processing, and lower visual processing in V1/V2 may also be impaired. Attention and executive functions are more widely disturbed in DLB than in AD. Imitation of finger gestures is impaired more frequently in DLB than in other mild dementia, and provides additional information for diagnosis of mild dementia, especially for DLB. Pareidolia, which lies between hallucination and visual misperception, is found frequently in DLB, but its mechanism is still under investigation.

The thalamus is a vital structure lying deep within the brain that has several important functions, such as sensory and motor function, attention, memory, speech, and emotion. Various thalamic nuclei with extensive nerve networks send signals all around the structures of the brain including the cerebral cortex. Thalamic lesions cause a wide variety of clinical symptoms; therefore, anatomical knowledge of the thalamus is important in clinical situations. In this paper, structure of the thalamus is outlined, sprinkled with examples of clinical cases.

Attention is the process by which information and selection occurs, the thalamus plays an important role in the selective attention of visual and auditory information. Selective attention is a conscious effort; however, it occurs subconsciously, as well. The lateral geniculate body (LGB) filters visual information before it reaches the cortex (bottom-up attention). The thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) provides a strong inhibitory input to both the LGB and pulvinar. This regulation involves focusing a spotlight on important information, as well as inhibiting unnecessary background information. Behavioral contexts more strongly modulate activity of the TRN and pulvinar influencing feedforward and feedback information transmission between the frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital cortical areas (top-down attention). The medial geniculate body (MGB) filters auditory information the TRN inhibits the MGB. Attentional modulation occurring in the auditory pathway among the cochlea, cochlear nucleus, superior olivary complex, and inferior colliculus is more important than that of the MGB and TRN. We also discuss the attentional consequence of thalamic hemorrhage.

Previous studies of change blindness have examined the effect of temporal factors (e.g., blank duration) on attention in change detection. This study examined the effect of spatial factors (i.e., whether the locations of original and changed objects are the same or different) on attention in change detection, using a shift-contingent change blindness task. We used a flicker paradigm in which the location of a to-be-judged target image was manipulated (shift, no-shift). In shift conditions, the image of an array of objects was spatially shifted so that all objects appeared in new locations; in no-shift conditions, all object images of an array appeared at the same location. The presence of visual stimuli (dots) in the blank display between the two images was.manipulated (dot, no-dot) under the assumption that abrupt onsets of these stimuli would capture attention. Results indicated that change detection performance was improved by exogenous attentional capture in the shift condition. Thus, we suggest that attention can play an important role in change detection during shift-contingent change blindness.

Previous studies demonstrated that observing another person's grasp action modulated the observer's attention to the object in a manner congruent with another person's action goal. These studies suggest that this grasp-cueing effect results from representation of the observer's understanding of action intention in the mirror neuron system. This system serves as the neural mechanism underlying action-oriented goals, regardless of whether they are those of the observer or others. The present study examined whether the grasp-cueing effect emerged even when a grasp action was observed from an egocentric (observer's own) perspective. Reaction times were faster when the target was presented over the object that was congruent with the action goal implied by the size of the hand aperture. This indicated that the grasp cueing effect occurred when the stimulus was observed from an egocentric perspective, consistent with the view that this effect resulted from the observer's understanding of action intention as represented in the mirror neuron system.

Background: One of the concerns in the use of propofol is the pain on injection of the drug. Many attempts were made to prevent such pain, none of which has been reasonably successful. We hypothesized that the pain is attenuated when the patient is directed to concentrate on counting numbers while propofol is injected., Methods: Ninety-one patients undergoing elective surgery under general anesthesia were enrolled. They were randomly assigned to counting or non-counting group. Patients in counting group were instructed to verbally count numbers backwards starting 100 when propofol was injected, while patients in non-counting group were injected propofol without any instructions. The size of the i.v. cannula, the temperature of the drug, and speed by which the drug was injected were controlled. No premedication was given. We interviewed the patients after the surgery and scored the pain on propofol injection, the pain on the placement of the iv cannula, and the anxiety level on entering the operating room., Results: There was no significant difference in the incidence of pain on injection of propofol (34% and 33% in the counting and the non-counting group, respectively). A multiple logistic-regression analysis revealed that the significant factors to cause pain on the injection of propofol were age and the degree of pain on inserting intravenous line., Conclusions: Intensive counting did not reduce the incidence of pain on injection of propofol. Age and the degree of pain on inserting intravenous cannula can be a useful predictor for an intolerable pain on injection of propofol.

A variety of disorders have been associated with the concept of body schema. However, this concept has been interpreted in many ways, and there is no consensus on the nature and cognitive mechanisms of body schema. Historically, two major issues have been discussed. One was the body-specificity of the body schema, and the other was the relationship between input and output modality. Autotopagnosia, an inability to localize and orient different parts of the body, has been a focus of attention because it is thought to provide insight into the function of body schema. Although there have not been many cases of pure autotopagnosia, a double dissociation indicating the independence of body-specific system. There are a few working hypotheses for cognitive models of body schema, which can explain the different types of autotopagnosia. One model includes multiple representation subsystems for body processing, while another assumes the use of intrinsic and extrinsic egocentric coordinates to maintain on-line processing for body state. The consistency of these accounts should be examined in light of extensive neuroimaging and psychological data, to construct a plausible model for body schema.

Given the vast amount of visual information in visual scenes, the capacity of our brain to processes such scenes is severely limited. The core mechanism of selection is referred to as visual attention, and it has been the topic of intense investigation for over 25 years in experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Visual attention is not a single, unitary mechanism, but consists of multiple subcomponents. Attention can be directed to various aspects of visual information, such as spatial location, features, or objects. Additionally, attention is guided by external factors such as the salience of stimuli, or whether we are able to move our attention volitionally. The purpose of this article is to review the status of these components of attentional guidance and how they interact with each other, with an emphasis on psychophysical studies.

Chewing does not only crush food to aid swallowing and digestion; it also helps to relieve stress and regulate cognitive functions, including alertness and executive function. It is well known that chewing gum is used for sleepiness prevention during work, learning, and driving. In addition, it has been shown in the elderly that a decrease in the number of residual teeth is related to dementia onset. These findings suggest a link between chewing and maintaining memory and attention. Recently, many studies regarding the effects of chewing on memory and attention were conducted using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG). When a working memory task was used, the middle frontal gyrus in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex showed greater activation in addition to producing higher alertness after chewing. Furthermore, using an attentional network test, reaction time shortened, and the anterior cingulate cortex and left frontal gyrus were both activated for the executive network. From these results, it is suggested that chewing elevates alertness, consequently leading to improvements in cognitive performance. In this review, we introduce findings concerning the effects of chewing on cognitive performance, and discuss the neuronal mechanisms underlying these effects.

People spontaneously generate an eyeblink every few seconds. It is generally accepted that eyeblinks are necessary for ocular lubrication, but spontaneous eyeblinks actually occur several times more frequently than necessary for lubrication. Thus, the functional role of most spontaneous eyeblinks has remained unclear. We found that peoples blinked in synchrony while viewing the same video stories. This blink synchronization specifically occured at the implicit breakpoints of the video stories. Moreover, in face-to-face communication, the listeners blinked with a delay of 0.25-0.5 s after the speaker blinked at the end and during pauses in speech. In contrast, the individuals with autism spectrum disorders, which are characterized by impaired social communication, did not show any eyeblink synchronization with the speaker. These facts demonstrate that spontaneous eyeblink is involved in the contextual segmentation of information, and that eyeblinks have a social function to share the contextual segmentation with others. Futhermore, our neuroimaging study revealed that, while viewing videos, cortical activity momentarily decreases in the dorsal attention network after blink onset but increases in the default-mode network. These results suggest that the spontaneous eyeblink is involved in the disengagement of attention at an implicit contextual breakpoint by controlling the balance between the two competing networks.

The last decade has seen a surge of interest in the study of social brain functions. Research in this field, called social neuroscience, has been mostly carried out on human subjects by using a functional neuroimaging technique. This is largely because of the fact that humans have sophisticated social abilities and are capable of performing various demanding tasks in a scanner. However, given the limited spatiotemporal resolution inherent in the methodology, a systems neuroscience approach using macaque monkeys may provide a useful platform that promotes the understanding of social brain functions at the cellular level, thereby complementing neuroimaging techniques. Recently, it has been demonstrated to be technically feasible to train macaque monkeys to perform socially oriented behavioral tasks and directly examine cellular activity in their brains. In this paper, we review the literature on this new branch of social neuroscience. Emerging evidence now suggests that diverse aspects of social cognition, such as social valuation, gaze following, joint attention, monitoring of other's behavior, and social comparison are implemented by distributed neuronal networks, including the orbital, lateral, and medial sectors of the prefrontal cortex, premotor cortex, posterior parietal cortex, amygdala, and superior temporal sulcus. Continuing efforts in this research direction could uncover the neural basis whereby primates have become such successful social beings in the animal kingdom.

The relative order of a letter sequence is difficult to recognize when it is presented repeatedly than when it is presented only once in a rapid serial visual presentation (Holcombe, Kanwisher, & Triesman, 2001). In the present study, we investigated a critical factor that causes this order deficit. Experiment 1 demonstrated that repeating a letter sequence in a short time period induced the order deficit. The robust order deficit did not recover even when the letter sequence included a salient item that attracted exogenous attention. Experiment 2 showed that attending to a briefly presented letter triggered the order deficit for a letter sequence presented within 500 ms after the preceding letter. These results suggest that the order deficit is caused by the temporal limits of visual attention that prevent order information from being consolidated into visual working memory.

Social cognition is defined as the capacity to engage in information processing with the aim of accurate cognition of other persons' character or intentions. Development of social cognition can be observed in behavioral patterns. However, their neural basis remains largely unknown. A functional neuroimaging technique has enabled us to observe neural activities in the human brain noninvasively. First the principle and history of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and its future perspective are introduced. As an example, presented is our attempt to apply simultaneous fMRI measurements of two individuals to elucidate the neural basis of joint attention, one of the most important behavioral milestones in the development of social cognition. Second, neural substrates of pro-social behavior are discussed. Specifically, it was found that social acceptance or praise is important for human altruistic behavior, and has a neural basis similar to that of basic reward or monetary reward. Lastly, I stress the importance of combining current and ongoing progress in neuroscience, from the 'micro' through 'macro' levels, with scholarship within the humanities. As a connecting node for the different research fields, functional neuroimaging techniques will play a critical for the ultimate goal of comprehensive understanding of human social cognition.

Purpose: Thyroid hormones are essential for the development of brain. Perinatal hypothyroidism induced by environmental endocrine disrupters is reported to cause cognitive dysfunctions such as attention and memory deficits. The purpose of this study is whether perinatal hypothyroidism causes deficits of shift attention and divided attention in offspring using a target detection task., Methods: Pregnant rats were treated with the anti-thyroid drug methimazole [0.02% (w/v)] from gestational day 15 to postnatal day 21. The offspring received behavioral testing using shift attention and divided attention tasks. The testing of shift attention started with the presentation of one of two targets. A lever was inserted to the same side as the presented target (ipsilateral trial). However, a lever was inserted to the opposite side to the presented target with the probability of 20% (contralateral trial). Next, the testing of divided attention was introduced. The testing started with the presentation of one of the two targets (one-side trial). A lever was inserted to the same side as the presented target. However, both targets were presented (both-side trial) and one of the two levers was inserted with the probability of 20%., Results and Discussion: On the contralateral trials in the shift attention task, the untreated rats responded frequently with reaction times of 1.4-1.6 s, whereas the treated rats responded sporadically with a wide range of reaction times of 1.2-7.2 s. This indicates that the treated rats were not able to shift their attention quickly toward the opposite side. When the both-side targets were presented in the divided attention task, the untreated rats responded frequently with the reaction times of 0.6-0.8 s and 1.4-1.6 s. The treated rats responded frequently with reaction times of 0.8-1.0 s and 1.0-6.4 s. Both the untreated and treated rats did not divide their attention toward the both-side targets but probably paid attention to one of the two targets. They responded with the shorter reaction times when the lever was inserted in the same side that they paid attention and responded with longer reaction times when the lever was inserted in the opposite side. We conclude that perinatal hypothyroidism affects shift attention in rats but further researches are necessary to examine whether hypothyroidism affects divided attention., Conclusion: Perinatal hypothyroidism causes the deficit of shift attention in rats but it was unclear whether hypothyroidism affects divided attention.

Mechanisms of Dohsa-hou (a holistic psycho-rehabilitation method) were investigated by comparing the effects of attention to body sensation and muscular relaxation. Participants were randomly divided into the following three groups. The Dohsa + Attention (D + A) group practiced Dohsa-hou by focusing attention on somatic sensations. The Dohsa (D) group practiced Dohsa without focusing attention. The control group did not practice Dohsa. All the participants were assessed using the Decentering Scale, the Self-Acceptance Scale, and the Depression and Anxiety Mood Scale before and after the intervention. The results indicated that both the D + A and D groups had increased self-acceptance and decreased anxiety scores. However, in comparison to the control group, the decentering score increased in the D + A group (p < .05), whereas the Depression score decreased in the D group (p < .05). These findings suggest that attention to body sensations is effective in increasing decentering, whereas muscular relaxation is effective in decreasing depressed mood.

Three experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of feature similarity and discrimination category in a flanker task. Gabor patches were used as target and distractor stimuli for each experiment. In the first experiment, the target turned to minus or plus 45 deg from the vertical, whereas the orientation of the distractors changed between minus and plus 45 deg by 15 deg. For the second experiment, three conditions of the target orientation were used: minus or plus 45 deg, minus 22.5 deg or plus 67.5 deg, and 0 deg or plus 90 deg. The orientation of the distractors changed between the orientations of the two targets by 22.5 deg. In the third experiment, the target turned to minus or plus 10 deg from the vertical, whereas the orientation of the distractors changed between minus and plus 40 deg by 5 deg. The results showed that responses to the target were affected by the difference between the orientations of the target and the distractors as well as the category of their orientations.

The Kiddie Continuous Performance Test (K-CPT) was produced by Conners for children in age from 4 to 5 years. This study attempted to examine the developmental changes and gender differences of this test in children from preschool to adolescence, to verify its appropriate age range for application, and also to obtain a norm for clinical applications. K-CPT was administered to 327 healthy participants from 4 to 18 years of age. Participants were divided into 7 age groups. The performances were examined in 6 measures: the total number of omission errors (OE), the total number of commission errors (CE), the mean hit reaction time (HRT), the hit reaction time standard error (HRTSE), perceptual sensitivity (d') and response style (beta). All measures showed significant developmental changes. OE and beta showed floor effects around 10 years. Such measures as CE, HRT, HRTSE and d' showed significant developmental changes until adolescence. The effect of gender was found in performances in OE, CE, d' and beta. Male participants made more errors and showed less favorable perceptual sensitivity than did female participants. Results suggested that K-CPT would be appropriate for use with preschoolers and school-aged children. Findings also suggested that it is a potential diagnostic tool in children with developmental disorders.

Eighteen young females performed two kinds of mental tasks, an Internally-Generated Mental Arithmetic task (IGMA: serial subtraction) and an Externally-Presented Mental Arithmetic task (EPMA: continual subtraction). Both tasks were equal in establishing active coping, but EPMA made participants attend more to an external stimulus. The expected reaction patterns were vascular-dominant (blood pressure elevation mainly due to an increase in total peripheral resistance) for only EPMA, or cardiac-dominant (mainly due to an increase in cardiac output) for both IGMA and EPMA. The results showed that vascular-dominant patterns were evoked during EPMA, while mixed (moderate increases in both cardiac output and total peripheral resistance) reaction patterns were evoked during IGMA. Post-task questionnaires confirmed that attention to an external stimulus was required much more in EPMA than in IGMA. These results indicate that the vascular-dominant reaction pattern was evoked in the state where attention to an external stimulus was heightened. The implications of the present findings are discussed in term of how to interpret the hemodynamic reaction patterns during mental stress.

Based on the load theory and the assumption that each hemisphere has independent resources, we examined the effects of perceptual load in each hemisphere on the compatibility effect. In Experiments 1, and 2ab, two letter-strings were presented to the left and right visual-fields with a distracter, which was presented on the center of the screen. Two conditions were prepared by pairing a letter-string which contained a target with one which did not. Right-handed participants were asked to identify the target in the letter-strings while ignoring the distracter. The results showed that the compatibility effect was larger when the perceptual load of the letter-string which did not contain a target was low. This suggests that the residual resources of the hemisphere where the target was not projected facilitated the processing of the distracter. In Experiment 3, two letter-strings were presented to both hemispheres. The results showed that the compatibility effect was constant, irrespective of the perceptual load of the letter-string. Our findings suggested that selective attention is modulated by the resources of each hemisphere.

Previous studies demonstrated that attention can be quickly guided to a target location in a visual search task when the spatial configurations of search items and/or the object identities were repeated in the previous trials. This phenomenon is termed contextual cueing. Recently, it was reported that spatial configuration learning and object identity learning occurred independently, when novel contours were used as search items. The present study examined whether this learning occurred independently even when the search items were meaningful. The results showed that the contextual cueing effect was observed even if the relationships between the spatial locations and object identities were jumbled (Experiment 1). However, it disappeared when the search items were changed into geometric patterns (Experiment 2). These results suggest that the spatial configuration can be learned independent of the object identities; however, the use of the learned configuration is restricted by the learning situations.

Recent cross-cultural research suggests that East Asians are more likely than their Western counterparts to be sensitive to contextual information. In this experimental research study, we presented a blinking circle situated at the center of the computer screen for 30s. Both Japanese and Western participants were alternately engaged in two different tasks: (a) A single target circle, and (b) a target circle with four surrounding circles. In either case, they were asked to focus only on the target circle while ignoring the surrounding information. The results indicated that, even though the Japanese attempted to focus on the center circle, they failed to focus only on the center circle. Their number of fixations and variances from the center to each fixation points were significantly larger than found with the Westerners. This effect was stronger when four circles surrounded the target circle compared to a single circle. These findings suggest that cultural influences on basic psychological processes may be very deep.

We examined the effect of surrounding information on reading text that was scrolling from right to left inside a fixed window. In Experiment 1, participants adjusted the scrolling rate so that they could comfortably read the text scrolling in the window. Above or below the window, a character was flashed with a random stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). The results showed that the comfortable scrolling rate increased with the size of the window (i.e, the number of characters simultaneously displayed in the window). Moreover, the comfortable scrolling rate decreased when discrimination of the flashed character was required. In Experiment 2 a character was flashed above or below the right or left end of the window. The results showed that the increase of the comfortable scrolling rate with window size was less effective when the character was flashed above or below the right end of the window. These results are discussed in relation to the role of eye movements when reading scrolling text in the presence of surrounding information.

This study investigated the effect of task demand on the allocation of attention in a large three-dimensional (3-D) space. Two load conditions were conducted. In the low load condition, the observer was required to judge whether a target appeared nearer or further than the fixation point. In the high load condition, the observer was also required to judge whether the target appeared at the same position as the fixation point. Pre-cues, which indicated the spatial location of a target, were used in order to control attentional shifts in depth. There were three conditions about cue validity: valid, invalid and neutral conditions. The results indicated that the effect of cue validity was more significant in the high load condition. Furthermore, the attentional effect (the difference between invalid and valid conditions) changed with regard to the target position in the high load condition, but remained unchanged in the low load condition. This suggests that attentional allocation can be changed depending on the task demand in a large 3-D space.

Previous research has shown that in enumeration tasks, "subitizing" is a rapid and an accurate process used with 1-4 items, and that "counting" is a slow and an inaccurate process used with over four items. It has been suggested that the former task is preattentive, whereas the latter task is attentive. We investigated whether item-size invariance and pattern symmetry affected subitizing and counting speeds. Participants enumerated dots, which were continuously presented, as quickly and as accurately as possible. Results of Experiment 1 indicated that the variance of dot-size was independent of enumeration time, suggesting that the variance in attentional allocation to each dot affected neither subitizing nor counting processes. Results of Experiment 2 indicated that pattern symmetry did not increase the capacity for subitizing, but increased the speed of counting. These results suggest that the capacity of subitizing is four items regardless of item-size invariance and pattern regularity. Moreover, the pattern configuration affected the speed of counting, whereas item features did not.

In visual search situations, it is known that not only bottom-up factors relative to the presented stimulus display but also top-down factors, which include foreknowledge about the target or observers' strategies for the task, have an influence on search performance. The present study examines how top-down attentional control settings affect the visual search process by using the within-dimension facilitation (WDF) and the inter-trial facilitation (ITF) effects. In Experiment 1 we showed the WDF effect using foreknowledge about the target-defining dimension within one block. In Experiment 2 we found the ITF effect using foreknowledge about the target-defining dimension in every trial. These results suggest that search performance is improved both top-down attentional setting using foreknowledge and inter-trial priming by repetition of target-defining dimensions, and they are interactive. Furthermore, the influence of the priming effect strongly appeared when observers had an attentional setting every trial. These results show that the magnitude of bottom-up inter-trial priming effects depends on the top-down attentional setting.

This study investigated the crucial factor mediating a correlation between performance of reading span test (RST) and reading comprehension. In the research literature on this issue, one of the remaining controversial points is whether the similarity of sentence processing between RST and comprehension contributes to the correlation. In this study, four RST conditions were created by the combination of two factors: relatedness of stimulus sentences (related or unrelated with each other) and focus of target words (focus or non-focus with respect to sentence meaning). If the correlation is mediated by the similarity of sentence processing, RST performance of related and focus condition, which was most akin to comprehension, would have higher correlation with reading comprehension than other conditions. However, as a result of correlation analysis based on data from ninety-six participants, no such evidence was obtained. On the other hand, RST performance of unrelated conditions that were supposed to strongly require attention control showed significant correlation with reading comprehension. These findings are discussed in terms of the contribution of attention control and short-term memory to performing RST and reading comprehension.

The effect of fear on the retrieval of eyewitness' recognition memory was experimentally investigated. Participants were presented with a thematic series of slides of either neutral or ambiguous stimuli. The ambiguous stimulus consisted of a red liquid flowing on a girl's head. Participants who saw the ambiguous stimulus interpreted the liquid as either red paint, or the girl's blood. Differences in the interpretation of the ambiguous stimulus affected the participants'recognition memory. Participants who interpreted the stimulus as blood displayed inferior memory compared to those who interpreted the stimulus as red paint or those who were shown the neutral stimulus. Moreover, when the participant's interpretation was changed from blood to red paint by an experimenter, the memory for central details was enhanced. These results suggest that fear interferes with retrieval. Participants' memory could be improved by reducing fear during the retrieval stage.

Visual experience depends critically on visual attention, which selects a particular aspect of a visual display. Recent clinical, neuroimaging, and animal studies revealed that visual attention was divided into active and passive or top-down and bottom-up attention. Although these dichotomies are clear-cut in definition, visual attention could be modulated by many factors. Detailed observation of brain-injured patients provides with evidence for dynamic and fine control of visual attention. We observed patients with dorsal simultanagnosia and that with callosal disconnection syndrome. Patients with dorsal simultanagnosia demonstrated that extent of visual attention was dynamically changed depending on the level of visual processing. Despite the ability to read a kanji character and to describe its components correctly, a patient could not notice a component that he had just written and could not assemble individual components to make up a correct kanji character. He could point to an overlapping area of two figures. But once he started to color the overlapping area, he missed the margin of the area and colored much larger area. Another patient with dorsal simultanagnosia missed borderlines between columns of a newspaper and read letters continuously across columns. In contrast, he could point to lines between figures or meaningless patterns easily. These findings indicated that visual attention was directed automatically to meaningful characters. A patients with callosal disconnection syndrome demonstrated left unilateral spatial neglect only when he used his right hand to draw figures. Right hand movement, controlled by the left hemisphere, elicited visual attention to the right hemispace, resulting in the left unilateral spatial neglect. Thus visual attention is not simply top-down or bottom up, but is implicitly affected by the visual recognition as well as motor component of the task.

Visual experience depends critically on visual attention, which selects a particular aspect of a visual display. Recent clinical, neuroimaging, and animal studies revealed that visual attention was divided into active and passive or top-down and bottom-up attention. Although these dichotomies are clear-cut in definition, visual attention could be modulated by many factors. Detailed observation of brain-injured patients provides with evidence for dynamic and fine control of visual attention. We observed patients with dorsal simultanagnosia and that with callosal disconnection syndrome. Patients with dorsal simultanagnosia demonstrated that extent of visual attention was dynamically changed depending on the level of visual processing. Despite the ability to read a kanji character and to describe its components correctly, a patient could not notice a component that he had just written and could not assemble individual components to make up a correct kanji character. He could point to an overlapping area of two figures. But once he started to color the overlapping area, he missed the margin of the area and colored much larger area. Another patient with dorsal simultanagnosia missed borderlines between columns of a newspaper and read letters continuously across columns. In contrast, he could point to lines between figures or meaningless patterns easily. These findings indicated that visual attention was directed automatically to meaningful characters. A patients with callosal disconnection syndrome demonstrated left unilateral spatial neglect only when he used his right hand to draw figures. Right hand movement, controlled by the left hemisphere, elicited visual attention to the right hemispace, resulting in the left unilateral spatial neglect. Thus visual attention is not simply top-down or bottom up, but is implicitly affected by the visual recognition as well as motor component of the task.

This study examines the hypothesis that a knife attracts witnesses' attention because of its pointed shape. In Experiment 1, 60 participants were shown a picture of a kitchen scene in which a woman held one of three items: a pointed knife, a square-shaped knife, or a detergent spray bottle. The weapon focus effect was measured by the recognition of details related to the object. Recognition information was significantly greater in the pointed knife condition than in the other conditions. In Experiment 2,40 participants viewed slides that depicted the assembling of a plastic model using either pointed tweezers or square-shaped tweezers. As in Experiment 1, participants remembered more details in the pointed tweezers condition than the other condition. Both results show that visual features of a weapon affect witnesses' memory and suggest that the pointed shape of knife is a factor that attracts witnesses' attention.

The purpose of this study was to compare the psychological effects of the heaviness and the warmth Standard Exercises (SE) with those of the first Space Exercises (SP) in Autogenic Training (AT) on college students. This study was conducted by the repeated practice of two experimental groups (SE, SP) and one control group (CT). The participants in the experimental groups practiced once a week, for three weeks. All the participants were assessed with State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-Trait Anxiety (STAI-T), Autogenic Training Clinical Effectiveness Scale (ATCES), and Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale. The results showed that the SE group showed more decreases in STAI-T and more increases in ATCES than the SP group, while the more neurotic, showed more increases in self-esteem in both the SE and SP groups. It is possible that non-clinical adults with high neuroticism might be able to enhance their STAI-T and ATCES in the SE group than in the SP group if their SE trainers respected their bodily abilities in readily responding to changes in sensations.

The error-related negativity (ERN) is a component of the event-related brain potential (ERP) that is associated with action monitoring and error detection. The ERN amplitude reflects attentional resource allocated to error detection. The present study examined whether discrete or gradational allocation strategy of attentional resource in error detection using the ERN amplitude. Only Eriksen flanker task was used in the single task condition. Eriksen flanker task was used as a primary task and Sternberg memory search task was used as a secondary task in the dual task conditions. The task difficulty of the secondary task manipulated in the present study included the memory load. Memory set sizes of 2, 4 and 6 were used in the Sternberg memory search task (M2, M4 and M6 conditions). The results indicated that reaction time was gradually delayed in the primary task as the task difficulty of the secondary task gradually increased. However the ERN amplitude of the primary task decreased in M6 condition alone. In conclusion, discrete allocation strategy of attentional resource was adopted in the error detection.

The effects of spatial attention by precuing the location of the target stimulus are attributed to two mechanisms: noise reduction and stimulus signal enhancement. The signal enhancement hypothesis proposes that attention directly improves the quality of the stimulus representation. In this study, we examined the temporal characteristics of signal enhancement by combining an orientation discrimination sensitivity measurement and the Speed-Accuracy Trade-off procedure. To minimize the spatial uncertainty, target position was indicated in advance. We found that the valid precue improved the orientation discrimination sensitivity by speeding up the rate of information processing, while not affecting the asymptotic level of sensitivity. We conclude that the signal enhancement by the attention is observed only at the early stage of information processing, and it has different temporal characteristics from that of noise reduction.

We examined the attentional constraints of the contextual cueing effect known to occur only for attended items. We focused on whether the items not only attended to but also inhibited afterwards yield the effect or not. We adopted a hybrid paradigm of visual marking and contextual cueing procedures. In the experiment, half the distractors preceded the others and a target for one second. The results showed the contextual cueing effect even with visually marked items. These results suggest that spatial configurations previously attended to and inhibited afterwards can be encoded as visual context.

Most human behaviors (responses) are volitional, the frequency of which is changed based on stimulus presentations contingent upon the response, that is, operant behavior. It is considered that the findings on cognitive functions based on operant behaviors are more reliable in extrapolating the results to humans. Impairment of memory function, most notably the impairments of working memory and attention, is an important research focus to elucidate the mechanism underlying the core syndrome of Alzheimer's disease. Among various methods to measure working memory and attention, a delayed matching-to-sample paradigm utilizing operant chambers equipped with 3 levers and a choice reaction time paradigm have been proven to be very useful. Aside from these, adaptation to new environment is an important function for survival, and its impairment has been considered to be one of the factors inducing psychiatric disorders. Preclinical methods to measure the adaptation ability include a position reversal learning paradigm utilizing 2-lever operant chambers. Since the findings of studies on cognitive functions utilizing operant behaviors have been in good correlation with clinical findings, it would serve as a good strategy for elucidating the causes of such disorders as well as developing therapeutic agents.

In order to evaluate visual perception, the P300 event-related potentials (ERPs) for visual oddball tasks were recorded in 11 patients with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders (AD/HD), 12 with mental retardation (MR) and 14 age-matched healthy controls. With the aim of revealing trial-to-trial variabilities which are neglected by investigating averaged ERPs, single sweep P300s (ss-P300s) were assessed in addition to averaged P300. There were no significant differences of averaged P300 latency and amplitude between controls and AD/HD patients. AD/HD patients showed an increased variability in the amplitude of ss-P300s, while MR patient showed an increased variability in latency. These findings suggest that in AD/HD patients general attention is impaired to a larger extent than selective attention and visual perception.