Context,goal, utility,and relevance: A reply to Evans (2002) considering Oaksford (2002)

Yama (2001) argued that the matching bias effect was an amalgam of a genuine matching effect and a set size effect. However, Evans (2002) pointed out some problems with Yama's argument. One was on the matching index used in Yama (2001). The others concerned a gap between Yama's (2001) interpretation of matching bias and Evans' (1998) recent discussions that had placed emphasis on the problem of implicit negation. I reply to these claims taking Oaksford (2002) into consideration. Further, I propose a framework connecting context, goal, utility, and relevance, and including a hierarchical structure of goals. I argue that theories of reasoning can be developed and extended with the framework.     

Attacked by the gods or by mental illness? Hybridizing mental and spiritual health in Okinawa

In 1972, the reversion to Japanese rule brought with it many changes for Okinawans, among them the widespread introduction of psychiatry. Psychiatry was not well received at first due to the extensive presence of shamans, who had traditionally dealt with Okinawans’ spiritual and psychological afflictions. Both psychiatrists and shamans claimed to be able to heal those who were labelled ‘mentally ill’ or ‘mentally disordered’ by psychiatrists. This conflict between systems over the body of the patient/client is relevant to debates today about both the perceived value of generic mental health diagnosis and treatment regimes compared with indigenous healing,1 See Kleinman (, ); WHO (2001).  [Google Scholar] and the question of isolating how markers or symbols of identity are employed in patients’ help-seeking choices. We examine three cases from the 1970s of patients who were diagnosed as suffering from both schizophrenia and an indigenous condition known as kami daarii.     

Infant's action skill dynamically modulates parental action demonstration in the dyadic interaction

When interacting with infants, human adults modify their behaviours in an exaggerated manner. Previous studies have demonstrated that infant‐directed modification affects the infant's behaviour. However, little is known about how infant‐directed modification is elicited during infant–parent interaction. We investigated whether and how the infant's behaviour affects the mother's action during an interaction. We recorded three‐dimensional information of cup movements while mothers demonstrated a cup‐nesting task during interaction with their infants aged 11 to 13 months. Analyses revealed that spatial characteristics of the mother's task demonstration clearly changed depending on the infant's object manipulation. In particular, the variance in the distance that the cup was moved decreased after the infant's cup nesting and increased after the infant's task‐irrelevant manipulation (e.g. cup banging). This pattern was not observed for mothers with 6‐ to 8‐month‐olds, who do not have the fine motor skill to perform the action. These results indicate that the infant's action skill dynamically affects the infant‐directed action and suggest that the mother is sensitive to the infant's potential to learn a novel action. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNS2IHwLIhg&feature=youtu.be     

Effects of direct and averted gaze on the subsequent saccadic response

The saccadic latency to visual targets is susceptible to the properties of the currently fixated objects. For example, the disappearance of a fixation stimulus prior to presentation of a peripheral target shortens saccadic latencies (the gap effect). In the present study, we investigated the influences of a social signal from a facial fixation stimulus (i.e., gaze direction) on subsequent saccadic responses in the gap paradigm. In Experiment 1, a cartoon face with a direct or averted gaze was used as a fixation stimulus. The pupils of the face were unchanged (overlap), disappeared (gap), or were translated vertically to make or break eye contact (gaze shift). Participants were required to make a saccade toward a target to the left or the right of the fixation stimulus as quickly as possible. The results showed that the gaze direction influenced saccadic latencies only in the gaze shift condition, but not in the gap or overlap condition; the direct-to-averted gaze shift (i.e., breaking eye contact) yielded shorter saccadic latencies than did the averted-to-direct gaze shift (i.e., making eye contact). Further experiments revealed that this effect was eye contact specific (Exp. 2) and that the appearance of an eye gaze immediately before the saccade initiation also influenced the saccadic latency, depending on the gaze direction (Exp. 3). These results suggest that the latency of target-elicited saccades can be modulated not only by physical changes of the fixation stimulus, as has been seen in the conventional gap effect, but also by a social signal from the attended fixation stimulus.     

Critical roles of mecamylamine-sensitive mushroom body neurons in insect olfactory learning

In insects, cholinergic neurons are thought to transmit olfactory conditioned stimulus (CS) to the sites for associating the CS with unconditioned stimulus (US), but the types of acetylcholine (ACh) receptor used by neurons participating in the association have not been determined. In cockroaches, a type of nicotinic ACh receptor specifically antagonized by mecamylamine (MEC) has been characterized. Here we investigated the roles of neurons possessing MEC-sensitive ACh receptors (MEC-sensitive neurons) in olfactory conditioning of salivation, monitored by changes in activities of salivary neurons, in cockroaches. Local and bilateral microinjection of MEC into each of the three olfactory centers, antennal lobes, calyces of the mushroom bodies and lateral protocerebra, impaired olfactory responses of salivary neurons, indicating that MEC-sensitive neurons in all olfactory centers participate in pathways mediating olfactory responses of salivary neurons. Conditioning of olfactory CS with sucrose US was impaired by injection of MEC into the antennal lobes or calyces, i.e., conditioned responses were absent even after recovery from MEC injection, suggesting that the CS-US association occurs in MEC-sensitive neurons in calyces (most probably Kenyon cells) or in neurons in downstream pathways. In contrast, conditioned responses appeared after recovery from MEC injection into the lateral protocerebra, suggesting that MEC-sensitive neurons in the lateral protocerebra are downstream of the association sites. Since lateral protocerebra are major termination areas of mushroom body efferent neurons, we suggest that input synapses of MEC-sensitive Kenyon cells, or their output synapses upon mushroom body efferent neurons, are the sites for CS-US association for conditioning of salivation.     

Effects on incidental memory of affective tone in associated past and future episodes: influence of emotional intelligence

The present study examined the effects of emotion elicited by episodes (past events or expected future events) and the relationship between individual differences in emotional intelligence and memory. Participants' emotional intelligence was assessed on the Japanese version of Emotional Skills and Competence Questionnaire. They rated the pleasantness of episodes they associated with targets, and then performed unexpected free recall tests. When the targets were associated with episodes that were past events, all participants recalled more of the targets associated with pleasant and unpleasant episodes than those associated with neutral episodes. However, when the targets were associated with episodes expected to occur in the future, only participants with higher emotional intelligence scores recalled more of the targets associated with pleasant and unpleasant episodes. The participants with lower emotional intelligence scores recalled the three target types with similar accuracy. These results were interpreted as showing that emotional intelligence is associated with the processing of targets associated with future episodes as retrieval cues.     

Suppression of brain activity related to a car-following task with an auditory task: An fMRI study

Driving a car in daily life involves multiple tasks. One important task for safe driving is car-following, the interference of which causes rear-end collisions: the most common type of car accident. Recent reports have described that car-following is hindered even by hands-free mobile telephones. We conducted functional MRI with 18 normal volunteers to investigate brain activity changes that occur during a car-following task with a concurrent auditory task. Participants performed three tasks: a driving task, an auditory task, and a dual task in an fMRI run. During the driving task, participants use a joystick to control their vehicle speed in a driving simulator to maintain a constant distance from a leading car, which moves at varying speed. Language trials and tone discrimination trials are presented during the auditory task. Car-following performance was worse during the dual task than during the single-driving task, showing positive correlation with brain activity in the bilateral lateral occipital complex and the right inferior parietal lobule. In the medial prefrontal cortex and left superior occipital gyrus, the brain activity of the dual task condition was less than that in the single-driving task condition. These results suggest that the decline of brain activity in these regions may induce car-following performance deterioration.     

Effects of angularity of the figures with sharp and round corners on visual evoked potentials

Following a study in which equilateral triangles elicited larger visual evoked potentials (VEPs) than either squares or circles, we examined the effect of single-line angular figures with a sharp or a round corner at angles of 45°, 90°, 135° or 180°. VEPs were recorded monopolarly at four locations on the midline of scalp for 10 subjects, while the figure was tachiscopically presented to the lower visual field. Subtracted waves were obtained between figure and control (blank) conditions. N1 (peak latency 135–142 ms) and P2 (235–237 ms) waves were identifiable. N1 amplitude tended to decrease as a function of angularity, irrespective of orientation (angle pointing up or down). The effect of the sharpness/roundness of the corner was much smaller than that of its angularity. These findings suggest that the greater VEP response with triangles than with squares and circles may be attributable to the acute angularity of triangles. Related cortical processes and VEP components are also discussed.