The dynamic-stimulus advantage of visual symmetry perception

It has been speculated that visual symmetry perception from dynamic stimuli involves mechanisms different from those for static stimuli. However, previous studies found no evidence that dynamic stimuli lead to active temporal processing and improve symmetry detection. In this study, four psychophysical experiments investigated temporal processing in symmetry perception using both dynamic and static stimulus presentations of dot patterns. In Experiment 1, rapid successive presentations of symmetric patterns (e.g., 16 patterns per 853 ms) produced more accurate discrimination of orientations of symmetry axes than static stimuli (single pattern presented through 853 ms). In Experiments 2-4, we confirmed that the dynamic-stimulus advantage depended upon presentation of a large number of unique patterns within a brief period (853 ms) in the dynamic conditions. Evidently, human vision takes advantage of temporal processing for symmetry perception from dynamic stimuli.     

Discrimination of artificial categories structured by family resemblances: a comparative study in people (Homo sapiens) and pigeons (Columba livia)

Adult humans (Homo sapiens) and pigeons (Columba livia) were trained to discriminate artificial categories that the authors created by mimicking 2 properties of natural categories. One was a family resemblance relationship: The highly variable exemplars, including those that did not have features in common, were structured by a similarity network with the features correlating to one another in each category. The other was a polymorphous rule: No single feature was essential for distinguishing the categories, and all the features overlapped between the categories. Pigeons learned the categories with ease and then showed a prototype effect in accord with the degrees of family resemblance for novel stimuli. Some evidence was also observed for interactive effects of learning of individual exemplars and feature frequencies. Humans had difficulty in learning the categories. The participants who learned the categories generally responded to novel stimuli in an all-or-none fashion on the basis of their acquired classification decision rules. The processes that underlie the classification performances of the 2 species are discussed.     

Development of a Japanese version of the emotional skills and competence questionnaire

The present study described development of a Japanese version of the Emotional Skills and Competence Questionnaire and examined the relations of scores with those on Big Five scales of personality and self-esteem scales. The participants were 615 undergraduates. Factor analysis led to the shortened version of 24 items in three subscales. Although Cronbach alphas were low for the subscale, Manage and Regulate Emotion, values were satisfactory for the other two subscales, Express and Label Emotion and Perceive and Understand Emotion. Total scores of this version were positively correlated with score for self-esteem, Extraversion, and Openness but negatively correlated with scores on Neuroticism. This shorter Japanese versions shows suitable internal consistency and content validity, but other reliabilities and validities must be examined precisely.     

Differences in adrenocortical secretory and gene expression responses to stimulation in vitro by ACTH or prolactin between high- and low-avoidance Hatano rats

Rats of the Hatano high-avoidance (HAA) and low-avoidance (LAA) strains have been genetically selected on the basis of their two-way active avoidance behavior, and have different endocrine responses to stress. The present study focused on the adrenal steroid hormone responses of the Hatano strains and identifies differences in regulation of the adrenal cortex in vitro of HAA and LAA rats. Although incubation with prolactin (PRL) and/or adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) resulted in a dose-dependent increase of corticosterone and progesterone release by adrenal cells from both HAA and LAA male rats, the responses were markedly increased for adrenal cells from LAA rats as compared with HAA rats. This finding suggested that adrenal glands of HAA rats are less sensitive to PRL and/or ACTH than adrenals from LAA rats. Several possible intra-adrenal regulators were investigated. The basal level of expression of steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR) and the long form of the PRL receptor (PRLR-L) mRNAs was higher in adrenals of LAA rats. ACTH treatment of adrenal cells from HAA rats resulted in statistically significant increases in melanocortin receptor 2 (MC2R) mRNA expression, while neither ACTH nor PRL altered MC2R mRNA expression in adrenal cells of LAA rats. Conversely, the increase in PRLR-L mRNA expression induced by PRL was observed only in adrenal cells from LAA rats. Treatment of adrenal cells with PRL and/or ACTH increased the expression of StAR and CYP11A1 mRNAs for both Hatano strains. However, the induction of StAR mRNA expression was higher in LAA rats, but the CYP11A1 response was lower. These findings indicate that adrenal cells of the LAA strain have higher sensitivity to secretagogues than those of the HAA strain. These results suggest that PRL may also be important in stimulating secretion of adrenal steroid hormones.     

Inter‐Asian Variability in Intergenerational Communication

This study compared Japanese and Thai younger adults' intra‐ and intergenerational communication. Both groups linearly increased communicative respect and avoidance, beliefs about politeness, and deference norms as interlocutors got older (from young to middle‐aged to older adult). Cross‐culturally, the Thais reported more respectful communication to younger adults than did the Japanese, while the Japanese were more likely to be avoidant of communication with middle‐aged adults. Both politeness and deference norms were more strongly endorsed by the Thais than Japanese. Via regression analysis, the deference norm positively predicted respectful communication to middle‐aged and older adults in Japan, and for young and middle‐aged targets in Thailand. Avoidant communication was found to negatively predict conversational enjoyment and satisfaction in both countries.     

Perception of local orientation from shaded images

The perception of local orientation from shaded images was examined. In Experiment 1, subjects viewed a boundaryless Gaussian hill and judged local orientation using both a gauge figure and a pointing method. One subject reported an internally consistent surface which was incompatible with the judged light-source direction and model used to generate the image. The remaining subjects reported a surface similar to the generating one, and analysis of their results indicated a contour of zero difference between response and generating slants. This contour of zero slant difference was explored in three subsequent experiments using the pointing technique. These experiments investigated possible influences of luminance artifact (Experiment 2), perception of global orientation (Experiment 3), and self-occluding contours (Experiment 4). All three of these experiments yielded results similar to those of Experiment 1, with distinct contours of zero slant difference. This contour was explored for relationships with the simulated slant of the generating surface and the differential structure of image intensity. This analysis indicated that the contour of zero slant difference was approximately a line of constant slant which shared large regions of adjacency to the zero crossings of the second directional derivative of image intensity.     

Antiphase flicker induces depth segregation

We examined the influence of the temporal phase of flickering stimuli on perceptual organization. When two regions of a uniform random-dot field are flickered in temporal alternation with the same flicker rate, one of the regions appears to lie in front of the other. Within the range of temporal frequencies used in the present experiments, depth perception was maximal between 5 and 31.3 Hz. Which region of the two is perceived as lying in front is different from person to person and sometimes fluctuates within the same subject, but when two regions are of different sizes, the smaller region tends to be perceived in front for longer than the larger region. The depth segregation was not due to a luminance difference, because the average temporal luminance of the regions was kept equal. Strikingly, the illusory depth segregation is perceived even between two adjacent regions whose densities of dots, sizes, shapes, and flicker rates are identical. This result suggests that a difference of temporal phase between two flickering regions is crucial for this new depth perception.     

The Effects of a Self-sacrificing Minority on Pro-environmental Norms and Behavior: An Investigation Using a Sea Pollution Game

This research investigated how a minority member sacrificing his/her personal benefits to protect the environment might influence the attitudes and behavior of others. The experiment, using a sea pollution game, employed a 2(minority factor)×2(cost factor) factorial design. Under the high-cost condition, in which an ecological minority bears the substantial cost it was hypothesized that the rate of subjects' pro-environmental behavior would be higher in the one-minority case than in the no-minority case. In contrast, under the low-cost condition, the differences between these two cases would decrease. The results supported this assumption. In prompting pro-environmental behavior, a self-sacrification minority member is more influential than one whose behavior is not self-sacrificing. Moreover, under the one-minority condition, path analyses indicated that the subjects' cost evaluation did not affect their behavior. It was concluded that when the subjects saw an ecological minority, the inhibiting effects of cost on their pro-environmental behavior would decrease.     

PSYCHOLOGY IN A NON-WESTERN COUNTRY*

Most psychological phenomena are intrinsically culture bound. Psychological theories developed in one culture may not automatically be generalizable to the behavior of the people of another culture. The psychology as a science primarily developed in Europe and America, based on the behavioral data of Western people studied by the psychologists grew in the Western culture. This obviously limits the applicability of psychology as it is to developing countries. This does not mean, however, that there should be as many psychologies as there are cultures. More generally valid psychology will emerge by identifying what is culturally specific in the main stream psychology and adopting new concepts of general applicability from other cultures. In the article below, stages of interaction between Western psychology and indigenous thought are described based on the history of psychology in Japan.     

Parallel—and distance—alleys with moving points in the horizontal plane

Stimulus points were presented on the horizontal plane of eye level under both dark and illuminated homogeneous spaces. When two apparent movements towards the subject were generated and positions of points were so adjusted that the two movements appeared straight and parallel (P alley) or with a constant lateral distance (D alley), the D alley lay outside the P alley, as traditionally shown with stationary sets of points. The two alleys were constructed with various patterns and velocities of movement, and the Lüneburg formulas were used as experimental equations to describe the results. The equations have two parameters: K (curvature) and o (sensitivity in depth perception). Values of K and o obtained with stationary points in previous experiments are shown too. Predominantly, K < 0 (hyperbolic), and the same is true in the present study. No first-order effect of patterns and velocities of the movement upon K and o was found.