Is behavioral pro-sociality game-specific? Pro-social preference and expectations of pro-sociality

We observed the behaviors of the same people across five games – two prisoner’s dilemma games, a trust game (in which the subject took on the role of both truster and trustee), a dictator game, and a faith game – any pair of which was separated by an interval of several months to reduce potential carry-over effects, and found strong consistency in behaviors among these games. We also found consistency between the expectations of other players’ behaviors and the player’s own behavior across games. We further found that the consistent behavioral pro-sociality observed across different games was related to the general measures of pro-social value orientation and perceiving the game situations. These findings suggest that individual and cultural differences in game behaviors can reflect both the ways in which people perceive game situations and their general social preferences.     

Morphological study of micropits formed by anodic etching of an Al-Pd-Mn icosahedral quasicrystal

Faceted micropits obtained by electrochemical etching of a single quasicrystal of an Al-Pd-Mn icosahedral phase have been examined by optical and electron microscopy. Anodic etching of the flat surface of a fivefold plane in a solution composed of CH₃OH and HNO₃(3:1 in volume ratio) reveals a variety of icosahedrally faceted micropits which originated from pre-existing microvoids and etch pits of pentagonal pyramid shape due to the other origins, probably structural defects inside the specimen. As the dissolution progresses, the micropits make successive changes in their shapes, ending in pentagonal pyramids before they vanish.     

Vocal recognition of owners by domestic cats (Felis catus)

Domestic cats have had a 10,000-year history of cohabitation with humans and seem to have the ability to communicate with humans. However, this has not been widely examined. We studied 20 domestic cats to investigate whether they could recognize their owners by using voices that called out the subjects’ names, with a habituation–dishabituation method. While the owner was out of the cat’s sight, we played three different strangers’ voices serially, followed by the owner’s voice. We recorded the cat’s reactions to the voices and categorized them into six behavioral categories. In addition, ten naive raters rated the cats’ response magnitudes. The cats responded to human voices not by communicative behavior (vocalization and tail movement), but by orienting behavior (ear movement and head movement). This tendency did not change even when they were called by their owners. Of the 20 cats, 15 demonstrated a lower response magnitude to the third voice than to the first voice. These habituated cats showed a significant rebound in response to the subsequent presentation of their owners’ voices. This result indicates that cats are able to use vocal cues alone to distinguish between humans.     

Fluctuations of answer and confidence rating in a general-knowledge problem task: Is confidence rating a result of direct memory-relevant output monitoring?

In order to examine whether confidence rating is a result of direct memory-relevant output monitoring, a general-knowledge test was used. A question set was answered in experimental session 1, and the same question set was employed in session 2. Subjects chose one answer from two alternatives. No significant difference in answer accuracy was found between sessions, which suggests that identical information processing was carried out, and that any difference between sessions was based on probabilistic fluctuation. The major results were as follows: (a) In both sessions, answer accuracy was an increasing function of confidence. (b) Answer-change rate (rate of different answers to the same question between sessions) decreased monotonically with confidence. (c) The distributions of confidence rating in session 2, conditional on the rating in session 1, were nearly identical in no-answer-change and answer-change cases. These results suggest that confidence rating is not a result of monitoring memory-relevant output itself but an estimation of possibility of answer fluctuation.     

Not just for special occasions: supporting the professional learning of teachers through critical reflection with audio-visual information

Despite increased use of professional learning communities in the teacher education field, they do not necessarily guarantee change in teachers’ daily practice. This study is a multiple case study of three school leaders in Vietnam to connect their teachers’ learning and practice by utilising visual records. In the cases studied, we see a progression of models of joint reflection based on visual information, from only occasional reflection to daily critical reflection, the latter of which the authors call ‘vide-flection’ referring to a process for people to consider their actions, thoughts, or experiences by utilising video-recorded images. For joint vide-flection, school leaders visit every classroom for several minutes every day to observe the wellbeing and learning of pupils and video-record struggles or breakthroughs in children’s learning; they share those images with teachers to jointly reflect on the situations. Through this vide-flection, teachers develop more detailed awareness of pupils needs.     

Differential effects of articulatory suppression on cue-switch and task-switch trials in random task cueing with 2:1 mapping

Recent studies have revealed that verbal representations play an important role in various task-switching situations. This study examined whether verbal representations contribute to the actual switching process using random task cueing with two cues per task. This procedure allowed us to produce a trial in which the cue switched, but the task repeated, thereby separating the cue-switching process from the actual task-switching process. Participants performed colour or shape judgements that were initiated by an arbitrary symbol cue (Experiments 1 and 2) or a kanji cue (Experiment 3) under control, articulatory-suppression, and foot-tapping conditions. In Experiments 1 and 2 with the arbitrary cues, articulatory suppression impaired performance in only the cue-switch condition. In Experiment 3, in which a kanji cue indicated the upcoming task name, articulatory suppression did not have any effects. These results suggest that the involvement of verbal representations in random task cueing is based on the cue-switching process rather than on the task-switching process.     

Beliefs and preferences in cultural agents and cultural game players

Two laboratory experiments demonstrated that Japanese participants did not conform to the majority unless negative social implications of not conforming were clear. When their behaviour had no implications for others, they rather exhibited preference for uniqueness. Results of Study 2 further demonstrated that participants' conformity to the majority was particularly prevalent among those who were chronically concerned with how other people would perceive them. Participants in these studies were shown to be cultural game players who changed their behaviour in response to anticipated responses of others based on culturally shared beliefs.     

Perceptions of the Concept of Mutation among Family Members of Patients Receiving Outpatient Genetic Services and University Students

Our objectives were to investigate: (1) relationships between perceptions of various terms regarding mutation and the depth of knowledge regarding mutation among family members of patients receiving genetic outpatient services, and (2) differences in perceptions of the term “gene mutation” for family members versus university students. Fifty-eight family members and 178 university students responded to two questionnaires: Impressions regarding the term, and Knowledge about the concept of mutation. Factor analyses were conducted to determine the factor structure of ratings of the terms, and two-way analyses of variance [(1)Term, (2)Group × Knowledge] were conducted to examine differences in perceptions of the terms as measured by scores for each extracted factor. Family members had a significantly more negative perception of the term “gene mutation” than “gene change” and a less negative perception of the term “gene mutation” than “gene lesion”; they had significantly more negative perceptions of the term “gene mutation” than did university students.     

Irrelevant sound disrupts speech production: Exploring the relationship between short-term memory and experimentally induced slips of the tongue

To explore the relationship between short-term memory and speech production, we developed a speech error induction technique. The technique, which was adapted from a Japanese word game, exposed participants to an auditory distractor word immediately before the utterance of a target word. In Experiment 1, the distractor words that were phonologically similar to the target word led to a greater number of errors in speaking the target than did the dissimilar distractor words. Furthermore, the speech error scores were significantly correlated with memory span scores. In Experiment 2, memory span scores were again correlated with the rate of the speech errors that were induced from the task-irrelevant speech sounds. Experiment 3 showed a strong irrelevant-sound effect in the serial recall of nonwords. The magnitude of the irrelevant-sound effects was not affected by phonological similarity between the to-be-remembered nonwords and the irrelevant-sound materials. Analysis of recall errors in Experiment 3 also suggested that there were no essential differences in recall error patterns between the dissimilar and similar irrelevant-sound conditions. Weproposed two different underlying mechanisms in immediate memory, one operating via the phonological short-term memory store and the other via the processes underpinning speech production.