Effects of media information on collective resilience in a disaster—A case study of the crisis of stranded commuters in Tokyo during the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake

This article examines the relations between media information and collective resilience—collective solidarity behaviours that emerge from a crowd—in a disaster. It uses the crisis of stranded commuters in Tokyo during the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake as a case study with data collected from an original survey. Using a cluster analysis and a multinomial logistic regression, it is found that media information is positively related to the characteristics of collective resilience, such as shared identity and mutual help. Specifically, among those who felt threatened by the disaster, people who had received more information from media, particularly from social media and mobile telephones, were more likely to display higher levels of these characteristics. It is contended that this is because media information can help people to feel more empowered and, thus, more willing to interact with and help others.     

The potential link between sense of agency and output monitoring over speech

We investigated output-monitoring errors over speech based on findings in the research on the sense of agency. Several words were presented one-by-one, and we asked participants to say the word aloud, mouth the word, or imagine saying the word aloud. Later, participants were asked whether each word was said aloud. We found that the “said aloud” response was higher for generated words than that for observed words; it was decreased when the pitch of the feedback was lowered but still higher than when no feedback was received, and it was the same when no feedback was received and when feedback was replaced by another’s voice. Furthermore, we found that the “said aloud” response did not decrease even when the altered feedback was received with a short delay. These results were discussed according to the sense of agency and agency memory.     

Rubber hand illusion, empathy, and schizotypal experiences in terms of self-other representations

When participants observed a rubber hand being touched, their sense of touch was activated (rubber hand illusion: RHI). While this illusion might be caused by multi-modal integration, it may also be related to empathic function, which enables us to simulate the observed information. We examined individual differences in the RHI, including empathic and schizotypal personality traits, as previous research had suggested that schizophrenic patients would be more subject to the RHI. The results indicated that people who experience a stronger RHI might have stronger empathic and schizotypal personalites simultaneously. We discussed these relationships in terms of self-other representations.     

PACAP centrally mediates emotional stress-induced corticosterone responses in mice

Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) is a pleiotropic neuropeptide widely distributed in the nervous system. Recently, PACAP was shown to be involved in restraint stress-induced corticosterone release and concomitant expression of the genes involved in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activation. Therefore, in this study, we have addressed the types of stressors and the levels of the HPA axis in which PACAP signaling is involved using mice lacking PACAP (PACAP?/?). Among four different types of stressors, open-field exposure, cold exposure, ether inhalation, and restraint, the corticosterone response to open-field exposure and restraint, which are categorized as emotional stressors, but not the other two, was markedly attenuated in PACAP?/? mice. Peripheral administration of corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) or adrenocorticotropic hormone induced corticosterone increase similarly in PACAP?/? and wild-type mice. In addition, the restraint stress-induced c-Fos expression was significantly decreased in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) and medial amygdala (MeA), but not the medial prefrontal cortex, in PACAP?/? mice. In the PVN of PACAP?/? mice, the stress-induced c-Fos expression was blunted in the CRF neurons. These results suggest that PACAP is critically involved in activation of the MeA and PVN CRF neurons to centrally regulate the HPA axis response to emotional stressors.     

Psychological Essentialism at the Explicit and Implicit Levels: The Unique Status of Social Categories

Psychological essentialism refers to a naive theory concerning fundamental elements that bring a category into its existence. The present study examined the structure of this lay theory as well as its implicitness, with a special focus on social categories. In Study 1, Japanese college students rated a number of categories that were natural‐kind, social, or human artifacts, in terms of different elements of essentialist beliefs. A factor analysis revealed that entitativity and naturalness are the common underlying dimensions across these category domains. We also identified some natural‐kind and human artifact categories that can be used as two extreme referent points for the examination of naturalness perceived in a whole array of social categories. Study 2 assessed implicit and automatic judgments on naturalness using a go/no‐go task, and compared them to explicit judgments. Unlike natural kinds and artifacts, social categories were essentialized to a greater extent at the implicit level. These results suggest a dual process of intuitive and deliberate cognition, particularly involving social categories, with implications concerning the bases of stereotypes and prejudices.     

Perception of large change in distribution of heel pressure during backward leaning

We investigated the perception of the large change in distribution of heel pressure during backward leaning. Subjects were 12 healthy adults who reported perceiving a large change in distribution of heel pressure by a handheld switch while leaning voluntarily backward on a sole pressure analyzer and on a heel force plate. The large change was indicated at the center of heel pressure. Morphological features of the foot were measured on an X-ray film. The position of heel pressure center and the morphological locations were represented as relative distance (%) from the hindmost point of the heel, where foot length represented 100%. Center of heel pressure changed largely during backward leaning, and the position at which large change occurred was the same as that of the peak of the distribution. Large change in distribution of heel pressure was perceived at a position 1.3% posterior from that at which the large change actually occurred. The correlation between perceived and actual positions was significant (r = .91). Significant correlations were found between position of a large change of center and locations of heel pressure of both the lateral process of the calcaneal tuberosity and the top of the talar trochlea (r = .86; r = .71, respectively). The results indicate that subjects accurately perceive large changes in distribution of heel pressure and that the morphological features of the foot contribute to these changes.     

Perceived standing position after reduction of foot-pressure sensation by cooling the sole

We investigated the influence of the reduction of foot-pressure sensation by cooling the sole of the foot, at 1 degree C for 30 or 40 minutes, on the perception of standing position varied in the anteroposterior direction. The subjects were 16 healthy undergraduates. Firstly, for 4 of the subjects, cooling the sole of the foot decreased sensory information from the mechanoreceptors in the sole, by testing for an increase in the threshold for two-point discrepancy discrimination on the sole of the foot and for the disappearance of postural change with vibration to the sole. Next, the perception of standing position was measured by reproduction of a given standing reference position involving forward or backward leaning under both normal and cooled conditions of the feet. Standing position was varied in relation to the location of the center of foot pressure, defined as distance from the heel in percentage of the length of the foot. The reference positions, representing various locations of the center of foot pressure, were set at 10% increments from 20% to 80% of the length of the foot. With eyes closed, the subject first experienced the reference position and then attempted to reproduce it. The mean location of the center of foot pressure in the quiet standing posture was 45.7%. At the 40%, 50%, and 60% reference positions, those closest to quiet standing, absolute errors of reproduction were significantly larger than at other reference positions in both the normal and the cooled conditions. They were significantly larger in the cooled than in the normal condition. The 50% and 60% reference positions were reproduced significantly further forward in the cooled than in the normal condition. These results may be explained as due to an absence of marked changes in sensory information from both muscular activity and foot pressure when moving to reference positions close to the quiet standing posture.     

Impact of On-Site Personal Experience of Violent Death on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder of Bereaved Japanese Family Members in Forensic Autopsy Cases

The present study investigated the influence of direct on-site experience of violent death on the symptoms involved in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) of bereaved Japanese family members (n = 367) in forensic autopsy cases, using a questionnaire survey. Factor analyses of three core symptoms of PTSD confirmed the factor structure. In general linear modeling, the major effect of direct on-site experience of violent death on PTSD score was significant, while manner of death alone did not have such an effect. These findings suggest that direct on-site experience of violent death is essential in the clinical assessment of PTSD-related symptoms of bereaved family members.     

There is More to Negation than Modality

There is a relatively recent trend in treating negation as a modal operator. One such reason is that doing so provides a uniform semantics for the negations of a wide variety of logics and arguably speaks to a longstanding challenge of Quine put to non-classical logics. One might be tempted to draw the conclusion that negation is a modal operator, a claim Francesco Berto (Mind, 124(495), 761–793, 2015) defends at length in a recent paper. According to one such modal account, the negation of a sentence is true at a world x just in case all the worlds at which the sentence is true are incompatible with x. Incompatibility is taken to be the key notion in the account, and what minimal properties a negation has comes down to which minimal conditions incompatibility satisfies. Our aims in this paper are twofold. First, we wish to point out problems for the modal account that make us question its tenability on a fundamental level. Second, in its place we propose an alternative, non-modal, account of negation as a contradictory-forming operator that we argue is superior to, and more natural than, the modal account.     

Sunscreen Safety: The Precautionary Principle, The Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration and Nanoparticles in Sunscreens

The ‘Precautionary Principle’ provides a somewhat ill-defined guide, often of uncertain normative status, for those exercising administrative decision-making power in circumstances where that may create potential risks to human health or the environment. This paper seeks to explore to what extent the precautionary principle should have been and was in fact utilised by the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in its decision to approve the marketing of sunscreens containing titanium dioxide (TiO₂) and zinc oxide (ZnO) in nanoparticulate form. In particular, this article assesses to what extent better application of that principle might have altered the TGA’s decision that TiO₂ and ZnO ENPs in sunscreens do not require new safety testing, because they are considered to be functionally equivalent to their bulk counterparts.