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The concealed information test (CIT), a psychophysiological detection of deception test, compares physiological responses between crime-related and crime-unrelated items. In previous studies, whether the act of answering questions affected physiological responses was unclear. This study examined effects of both question-related and answer-related processes on physiological responses. Twenty participants received a modified CIT, in which the interval between presentation of questions and answering them was 27 s. Differentiated respiratory movements and cardiovascular responses between items were observed for both questions (items) and answers, while differentiated skin conductance response was observed only for questions. These results suggest that physiological responses to questions reflected orientation to a crime-related item, while physiological responses during answering reflected inhibition of psychological arousal caused by orienting. Regarding the CIT's accuracy, participants' perception of the questions themselves more strongly influenced physiological responses than answering them.

In order to examine the encoding of partial silence included in a sound stimulus in neural representation, time flow of the sound representations was investigated using mismatch negativity (MMN), an ERP component that reflects neural representation in auditory sensory memory. Previous work suggested that time flow of auditory stimuli is compressed in neural representations. The stimuli used were a full-stimulus of 170 ms duration, an early-gap stimulus with silence for a 20 - 50 ms segment (i.e., an omitted segment), and a late-gap stimulus with an omitted segment of 110 - 140 ms. Peak MMNm latencies from oddball sequences of these stimuli, with a 500 ms SOA, did not reflect time point of the physical gap, suggesting that temporal information can be compressed in sensory memory. However, it was not clear whether the whole stimulus duration or only the omitted segment duration is compressed. Thus stimuli were used in which the gap was replaced by a tone segment with a 1/4 sound pressure level (filled), as well as the gap stimuli. Combinations of full-stimuli and one of four gapped or filled stimuli (i.e., early gap, late gap, early filled, and late filled) were presented in an oddball sequence (85% vs. 15%). If compression occurs only for the gap duration, MMN latency for filled stimuli should show a different pattern from those for gap stimuli. MMN latencies for the filled conditions showed the same pattern as those for the gap conditions, indicating that the whole stimulus duration rather than only gap duration is compressed in sensory memory neural representation. These results suggest that temporal aspects of silence are encoded in the same manner as physical sound.

Odor and color are powerful elicitors of subjective emotion, yet it is not clear whether emotions elicited by odor are influenced by color. The present study examined the influence of color on the affective ratings of odors from essential oils: lemon, lavender, and sandalwood. Two preliminary tests using the same mood scale (Multiple Mood Scale: MMS) to odors and colors revealed that there were affectively congruent (and incongruent) pairs of colors and odors. Thus, affectively congruent and incongruent colors were determined for the three odors based on these preliminary tests. In the Experiment, 19 participants rated their affective impression of odors under two conditions; the odors were primed by congruent colors and by incongruent colors. The results showed that the affective ratings of odor differed between congruent and incongruent color conditions. The ratings changed toward the color's affective properties that were found in a preliminary test. These findings suggest that the emotions elicited by an odor are influenced by the affective properties of a primed color.

聴覚情報は時間統合窓 (temporal window of integration: TWI) に基づいた統合処理を経て，聴覚記憶に一次保持される。TWI が刺激オンセットごとに形成されるか否かを検討するため，刺激間間隔（ISI）の変化 (22 ms) に伴うミスマッチ陰性電位 (MMN) を記録した。標準刺激は持続時間22 ms の3 つのトーンバースト群 ( 無音部は22 ms) によって構成された。標準刺激のISI を異なるブロックで操作した (66, 88, 110, 132, および198 ms)。もしTWI が各オンセットに対して形成されるなら，標準刺激のISI が長い条件でもMMN が惹起すると考えた。その結果，すべてのISI 条件でISI が縮む変化にのみMMN が出現し，伸びる変化には出現しなかった。これらの結果はTWI の持続時間はブロック間で可変であり，一方でブロック内では標準刺激のISI に基づいて固定されることを示している。これより短い聴覚記憶ではTWI が柔軟に駆動されていることが示唆された。

In this study, we examined whether visual context can be learned through a dynamic display and whether it can facilitate sustained attentional tracking by combining a multiple object tracking (MOT) task and a contextual cueing procedure. The trajectories of the targets and distractors in the MOT task were made invariant by repeatedly presenting them. The results revealed that when the targets were repeatedly displayed, tracking performance implicitly improved, and this effect was enhanced when the unattended distractors in the displays were also repeated. However, the repetition of the distractors alone did not produce any effect. Interestingly, when the targets and distractors were switched in a display in which the distractors had been previously repeated, the tracking performance was impaired as compared with that in the case of nonrepeated displays. We concluded that the contextual information in a dynamic display facilitates attentional tracking and that different types of contextual modulations occu...

We investigated 3- and 4-month-old infants’ sensitivity to differences defined by shading using a paired-comparison familiarity/novelty preference procedure. Infants were familiarized with a pair of displays consisting of homogeneous shaded disks, and then were tested with two displays: the familiar display and a novel one containing shaded disks with reversed polarity (defined as the target). Experiment 1 examined two assumptions on discerning shapes from shading in infants by manipulating the orientations in the shading gradient of stimuli. When the orientation of the shading gradient was vertical, 4-month-old infants looked at the novel display for a longer time during the test trial. However, they failed to detect differences when the orientation of shading gradients was horizontal. Three-month-old infants did not detect differences in either orientation of the shading gradient. Experiment 2 examined asymmetry in the detection of convex versus concave shapes. Four-month-old infants failed to detect the target when the orientation of the shading grating was vertical and the target was convex. Taken with the results of Experiment 1, concave shapes were much easier to detect than convex shapes for 4-month-olds. This asymmetry suggests that 4-month-old infants process shading information in the same manner as adults.

When a movie presents a person walking, the background appears to move in the direction opposite to the person's gait. This study verified this backscroll illusion by presenting a point-light walker against a background of a random-dot cinematogram (RDC). The RDC consisted of some signal dots moving coherently either leftward or rightward among other noise dots moving randomly. The method of constant stimuli was used to vary the RDC in motion coherence from trial to trial by manipulating the direction and percentage of the signal dots. Six observers judged the perceived direction of coherent motion in a two-alternative forced-choice procedure. Response rates for coherent motion perception in the direction opposite to walking were evaluated as a function of motion coherence. The results showed that the psychometric function shifted toward the direction determined by a bias in the opposite direction to the walker. The mean threshold was about half as high as that in a control condition in which the positions of the point-lights were scrambled to impair the recognition of the walker. The results demonstrate that biological motion noticeably affects the appearance of motion coherence in the background.

Lambda response is obtained by averaging EEGs time-locked to the offset of saccadic eye movements (saccades) with a peak latency of about 100 ms from the offset of saccades. Lambda response is thought to be evoked by the inflow of visual information after the termination of the saccade. The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the effect of stimulus contrast on lambda response. Eighteen normal adults participated in the experiment. The stimuli were vertical black-and-white sinusoidal gratings of three spatial frequencies (0.5, 1 and 3 cycles/degree, cpd). Stimulus contrast ranged from 0% to 96%. The subject made horizontal saccades between two fixation points at a constant pace. At spatial frequencies of 0.5 and 1 cpd, the peak latency of lambda response decreased as the stimulus contrast increased. At spatial frequency of 3 cpd, the peak latency did not vary with the stimulus contrast. The peak amplitude of lambda response did not vary with the stimulus contrast at spatial frequencies of 0.5 and 1 cpd, but it did at spatial frequency of 3 cpd. These results indicate that the effect of stimulus contrast on lambda response changes according to the stimulus spatial frequency. They also suggest that lambda response may be a useful index of visual information processing with eye movements.

When we measure the visual event-related potential (ERP), a subject has to fix eyes to a point on the display in an experimental situation or in a diagnosis on the visual function. Therefore, it is very hard to apply the event-related potential (ERP) to assessment of sensation and attention at clinical fields or at industrial settings. We developed a system to analyze the brain potential associated with offset of saccadic eye movements. The potential is called eye fixation-related potential (EFRP). EFRP is identical with the so-called visual ERP. We can measure the topographical change of EFRP in real time. The first system with a UNIX (Version 1) was very fast, but very expensive. However, the new system (Version 2) is more economical, because it can be used in a notebook computer with Windows XP. EEG and EOG data can be sampled in real time, although the data are analyzed offline. The new system will be useful to study cognitive factors under eye movement conditions.

We examined in detail effects of priming in 2 mental rotation strategies: spinning (rotating in a picture plane) and flipping (rotating in depth around a horizontal axis) by using a priming paradigm of Kanamori and Vagi (2002). The priming paradigm included prime and probe tasks within 1 trial. In the prime task, 16 participants were asked to mentally rotate an inverted object to upright. In the probe task, they were asked to judge whether 2 objects simultaneously presented were the same or different. In result, the priming effect was observed in the upright position in both strategies, but not in the inverted and intermediate position while using a flipping strategy. The result in the present study was consistent with that of Kanamori and Vagi (2002). In conclusion, when the 2 strategies for transformation of inverted images to upright images are used, apparent differences are observed in each direction of rotation. The results suggested that mental rotation occurred during the spinning strategy, but another transformation of images rather than mental rotation occurred during the flipping strategy. The line-symmetrical transformation around the horizontal axis might be used in the flipping strategy.

When subjects made a saccade across a single-flashed dot, a flickering dot or a continuous dot, they perceived a dot, an array (phantom array), or a line (phantom line), respectively. We asked subjects to localize both endpoints of the phantom array or line and calculated the perceived lengths. Based on the findings of Matsumiya and Uchikawa (2001), we predicted that the apparent length of the phantom line would be larger than that of the phantom array. In Experiment 1 of the current study, contrary to the prediction, the phantom line was found to be shorter than the phantom array. In Experiment 2, we investigated whether the function underlying the filled-unfilled space illusion (Lewis, 1912) instead of the function underlying the saccadic compression could explain the results. Subjects were asked to localize both endpoints of a line or an array while keeping their eyes fixated. Although the results of Experiment 2 showed that the perceived length of a line was shorter than that of an array, the function underlying the filled-unfilled illusion could not fully account for the results of Experiment 1. To explain the present results, we proposed a model for the localization process and discussed its validity.

When observers make a saccade across a flickering light dot at the same location, they usually perceive an array of dots (Hershberger, 1987). This phenomenon can be exploited for presenting two-dimensional images using only a single dimensional light source such as a single column of LEDs or laser projectors. In the present study, we investigated whether the perceived length of saccade-induced images is modulated by relative position of the light source and the observer. Participants were presented with a continuous laser-lit dot at several different locations adjacent to a saccade target. On each trial, they were required to make a saccade from a fixation point to the saccade target and then to localize the two endpoints of perceived line induced by the saccade. The results showed that the perceived length of the saccade-induced lines was approximately a half of the distance between the fixation point and the saccade target regardless of the light source location.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of biological sex and masculinity/femininity on physiological (blink and heart rates), emotional (anxiety and mood), and behavioral responses (behavioral ratings of communication skills) during communication situations. Participants were 46 students in a Japanese university. They were categorized into 3 gender types—androgynous, stereotypical, and cross-gender on the Masculinity–Humanity–Femininity Scale (Ito, 1978) and the Social Skills Inventory (Riggio, 1986). The communication situations consisted of 2 experimental tasks (question-asking and self-introduction in front of a video camera). These two tasks were conducted in both Japanese and English. The results suggested that the cross-gender-type participants (feminine men and masculine women) showed increased blink and heart rates. For the behavioral ratings, the cross-gender type and the androgynous gender type were judged to have better communication skills than the stereotypical gender type. There was no significant difference in emotional responses among groups. The interaction of biological sex and masculinity/femininity may be associated with interpersonal adjustment and its stress responses.

Blinking behavior during conversation may be different between conditions in listening and responding to questions because sifting attention from external to internal is possibly associated. The purpose of this study was to compare blinking behavior, duration, heart rates, and mental states during the tasks of listening to and responding to questions in Japanese and English. Participants were 67 (35 men and 32 women) undergraduate students. Blink rate while responding to questions in English did not differ from that while responding to questions in Japanese, but blink rate while listening to questions in English was significantly reduced compared to that while listening to Japanese. While anxiety and uneasiness were increased by the English conversation, blink rate and heart rate were decreased. Blinking behavior may be related to thinking and attention.

This study examined the relationships of masculinity-femininity with stress-coping skills (Ozeki, 1993) and with communication skills, measured by the Social Skills Inventory (SSI: Riggio, 1986). Participants were 916 (353 males, 563 females) undergraduate students, mean age 18.7 years, in Japanese universities. The following 5 types were studied: the masculine type, the feminine type, the androgynous type, the undifferentiated type, and the midmost type. Results showed that masculinity was strongly and linearly associated with the dependent variables, and femininity showed low correlation coefficients after controlling the masculinity, especially for males. For females, the androgynous type had better communication skills and active coping skills than did the other types. The androgynous type had cumulative effects of masculinity and femininity.

The sequence of neural activation during a visual search task was investigated using magnetoencephalography and the source locations for the activations were analyzed using a single-dipole algorithm. Five components (M1–5) were detected at mean latencies of 110, 146, 196, 250 and 333 ms in both of two different stimulus conditions; a target popped out in one stimulus condition (pop-out), while it did not in the other condition (non-pop-out). Statistical analysis showed that the M3 amplitude was larger and the M5 latency was shorter in the pop-out condition than in the non-pop-out condition, while there was no difference in the other components between the conditions. Neural sources were localized in the calcarine sulcus (M1) and the posterior fusiform gyrus (M2) of the hemisphere contralateral to the stimuli, the intraparietal sulcus and the posterior superior temporal sulcus (M3) in either of the hemispheres, and the calcarine sulcus (M4) of the same hemisphere in which the early processing (M1 and M2) occurred. The criteria for source localization were not satisfied for M5. The results suggest that the processing for pop-out and non-pop-out stimuli share a common mechanism; after early feature processing in the occipital cortex (M1 and M2), visual information is processed in the parietal and temporal regions (M3) and then some of this information is fed back to the occipital cortex (M4).

Due to the rapid ageing of the Japanese population, the demand for social services is increasing. However, these professions are not generally recognized yet. According to the report by Kawata (1984, 1986), social workers were distressed by low pay and low recognition for the profession, an inflexible, hierarchical administration system, and staff shortages. However, few studies have focused on social workers' healthy behaviours. The present study focused on the healthy behaviours of Japanese social workers and examined the relationship of these habits to masculinity and femininity, in addition to gender differences. To identify the healthy behaviours of social workers, we compared the behaviours of 32 mental health workers and 63 caregivers to those of 91 members of the general public who attended a summer course. Four questionnaires were administered: health locus of control (Watanabe, 1985), healthy behaviours (Munakata, 1996), health state, and Masculinity-Humanity-Femininity scale (Ito, 1978). The re...

This study explored object processing associated with attention level dependent on task, using a paradigm of negative priming. Participants were required to identify target characters that appeared at either the global or local level in hierarchically structured patterns. Two experiments were conducted to examine how the global and local characters were processed in the attended and unattended levels. In the results of Experiment 1, where stimuli were presented for 10 ms, negative priming was observed in a local-directed task, but not in a global-directed one. These results suggested that the inhibition of local characters in the unattended level did not occur during global attention. The results of Experiment 2 revealed that negative priming was observed in both global- and local-directed tasks in the 500 ms presentation, showing that inhibition in the unattended level occurred. As a result, the exposure duration influences inhibition in the unattended, especially the local level. At short exposure duration, the local characters are not inhibited when one directs attention to the global characters, whereas these are inhibited at long exposure duration.

Inhibitory tagging is a process that prevents focal attention from revisiting previously checked items in inefficient searches, facilitating search performance. Recent studies suggested that inhibitory tagging is object rather than location based, but it was unclear whether inhibitory tagging operates on moving objects. The present study investigated the tagging effect on moving objects. Participants were asked to search for a moving target among randomly and independently moving distractors. After either efficient or inefficient search, participants performed a probe detection task that measured the inhibitory effect on search items. The inhibitory effect on distractors was observed only after inefficient searches. The present results support the concept of object-based inhibitory tagging.

An observer's memory for the final position of a moving stimulus is shifted forward in the direction of its motion. Observers in an upright posture typically show a larger forward memory displacement for a physically downward motion than for a physically upward motion of a stimulus (representational gravity; Hubbard & Bharucha, 1988). We examined whether representational gravity occurred along the environmentally vertical axis or the egocentrically vertical axis. In Experiment 1 observers in either upright or prone postures viewed egocentrically upward and downward motions of a stimulus. Egocentrically downward effects were observed only in the upright posture. In Experiment 2 observers in either upright or prone postures viewed approaching and receding motions of a stimulus along the line of sight. Only in the prone posture did the receding motion produce a larger forward memory displacement than the approaching motion. These results indicate that representational gravity depends not on the egocentric ax...

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of a stress-management program for college students of social work on their perception of mental stress and stress-coping strategies. Students in a stress-management group received progressive muscle training, cognitive-behavioral skills training, and assertion training for 14 weeks. Their life events, stress symptoms, and stress-coping skills (active and passive coping skills), evaluated on the first and last days of program, were compared with those of a control group. The effect of the participants' trait anxiety on those variables was also examined. Because the stress-management program in the present study focused on coping strategies, it was expected that the students' coping skills would change. The results showed that passive coping skills of students in the stress-management group had decreased after the program.