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.     

Effectiveness of word order and grammatical markers as syntactic indicators of semantic relations in opaque input conditions

Using an artificial linguistic system an attempt was made: (1) to estimate the relative opacity between a meaning-form correspondence which would not interfere with the acquisition of a linguistic system and (2) to determine the relative effectiveness of word order and grammatical markers as syntactic indicators of semantic relations in less transparent input conditions. The results showed that syntax was induced even under 25% opaque conditions and that word order exhibited a slight tendency to be more effective than grammatical markers. Discussion emphasized the minimum amount of structural invariance necessary for a meaning-form mapping under opaque input conditions.     

Extraction of linguistically relevant referential properties through language learning

In order to identify the role of language in extracting a particular referential property which was involved in a reference situation but which was not expressed as relevant, in the linguistic structure of the subjects' native language, three experiments were performed. Forty subjects were exposed to the same referential situations but to different linguistic structures, each encoding a particular referential property that was, relevant. Miniature artificial languages were used. The referential properties examined were prototypical transitivity as defined by Slobin (1980) and plurality. The results showed that prototypical transitivity was extracted more readily than plurality, even though the subjects were more familiar with the latter property. The discussion emphasized how language serves to promote, the extraction and encoding of linguistically relevant properties that underlie referential situations.Deep gratitude is due to Prof. D. D. Steinberg for his cogent and critical reading of the earlier version of the paper.     

Physical health 25 years later: the predictive ability of neuroticism

OBJECTIVE: Neuroticism, a personality trait related to distress and emotional stability, is often correlated with physical symptoms and disease presence. Theorists have posited that chronic emotional instability creates physiological changes detrimental to health, yet most findings are based on cross-sectional analyses. The objective of the current study was to examine neuroticism assessed in 1973 and the likelihood of reporting physical conditions 25 years later. DESIGN: Participants included 21676 adult twins (n = 8143 intact twin pairs) ranging from 15 to 47 years old in 1973 who were assessed again between 1998 and 2002. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Thirteen physical conditions, including chronic fatigue syndrome, ulcers, and coronary heart disease, were selected based on their prior theoretical and empirical links to personality traits. RESULTS: Results indicate that the likelihood of having a physical condition is related to higher levels of prior neuroticism, with some associations attenuated when controlling for familial similarity. CONCLUSION: Familial influences are most pronounced for conditions most related to systemic pain, suggesting genetic pathways between neuroticism and these pain experiences.     

Synaptic plasticity in hippocampal CA1 neurons of mice lacking type 1 inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate receptors

In hippocampal CA1 neurons of wild-type mice, delivery of a standard tetanus (100 pulses at 100 Hz) or a train of low-frequency stimuli (LFS; 1000 pulses at 1 Hz) to a naive input pathway induces, respectively, long-term potentiation (LTP) or long-term depression (LTD) of responses, and delivery of LFS 60 min after tetanus results in reversal of LTP (depotentiation, DP), while LFS applied 60 min before tetanus suppresses LTP induction (LTP suppression). To evaluate the role of the type 1 inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor (IP3R1) in hippocampal synaptic plasticity, we studied LTP, LTD, DP, and LTP suppression of the field excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) in the CA1 neurons of mice lacking the IP3R1. No differences were seen between mutant and wild-type mice in terms of the mean magnitude of the LTP or LTD induced by a standard tetanus or LFS. However, the mean magnitude of the LTP induced by a short tetanus (10 pulses at 100 Hz) was significantly greater in mutant mice than in wild-type mice. In addition, DP or LTP suppression was attenuated in the mutant mice, the mean magnitude of the responses after delivery of LFS or tetanus being significantly greater than in wild-type mice. These results suggest that, in hippocampal CA1 neurons, the IP3R1 is involved in LTP, DP, and LTP suppression but is not essential for LTD. The facilitation of LTP induction and attenuation of DP and LTP suppression seen in mice lacking the IP3R1 indicates that this receptor plays an important role in blocking synaptic potentiation in hippocampal CA1 neurons.     

Self-corrected elaboration effects on incidental memory

Subjects performed an orienting task involving 3 conditions followed by an unexpected free recall test. The conditions were designed to force 3 types of corrected elaborations: Generated Correction, Chosen Correction, and No Correction. In the Generated Correction condition the subjects were presented with a target word (e.g., Baby) and a bizarre sentence frame (e.g., "____drinks beer.") and asked to correct the target to a congruous word (e.g., Uncle) to make a common sentence. In the Chosen Correction condition, the subjects were presented with a target and its bizarre sentence frame and asked to choose one of the alternative congruous words (e.g., Uncle, Aunt) to make a common sentence. In the No Correction condition, the subjects were presented with a target and its bizarre sentence frame and asked to rate the congruity of each target to its sentence frame. Generated Correction led to a better performance than Chosen Correction and No Correction, but a difference between the last two correction types was not found. These results were interpreted as showing that, by generating correct information, self-corrected elaboration led to facilitation of incidental memory.     

Effects of types of elaboration on children's memories of a story: interaction with academic performance

Two experiments compared the effectiveness of three types of elaboration on incidental and intentional memory for a story: self-generated, self-choice, and experimenter-provided elaboration. In Exp. 1, using the incidental memory paradigm, second graders listened to a fantastic story and then, in the self-generated condition, answered a "why" question about a particular topic in the story. In the self-choice condition, they chose one of the alternative answers to the question and in the experimenter-provided condition, judged the appropriateness of each of two provided answers. This was followed by free-recall and cued-recall tests. Subjects were categorized into two groups, good and poor academic achievers in terms of academic scores in four subject matter areas. For good academic achievers, self-choice elaboration led to a better cued recall than the other two elaboration types. The cued-recall performance of poor achievers was not different with the three conditions. In Exp. 2, using the intentional memory paradigm, the subjects intended to learn a different story and then performed the same procedure as Exp. 1. For poor achievers, self-choice elaboration led to a worse free recall than the other elaboration types, but the free recall of good achievers was not significantly different for the three types of elaboration. The results were interpreted as showing that the effects of self-choice elaboration on incidental and intentional memory were correlated with subjects' academic performance.