Confirmatory factor analysis of the eating disorder inventory

The Japanese version of the Eating Disorder Inventory was completed by 204 female university students. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the 9 factors reported by Shimura, et al. (2003). Further, maximum likelihood factor analysis yielded nine factors, accounting for 48.8% of the total variance. There was also adequate fit for each of the 9 subscales. This study provided additional evidence on validity for this Japanese version.     

Spontaneous attention to word content versus emotional tone: differences among three cultures

A Stroop interference task was used to test the hypothesis that people in different cultures are differentially attuned to verbal content vis-à-vis vocal tone in comprehending emotional words. In Study 1, Americans showed greater difficulty ignoring verbal content than ignoring vocal tone (which reveals an attentional bias for verbal content); but Japanese showed greater difficulty ignoring vocal tone than ignoring verbal content (which reveals a bias for vocal tone). In Study 2, Tagalog-English bilinguals in the Philippines showed an attentional bias for vocal tone regardless of the language used, suggesting that the effect is largely cultural rather than linguistic. Implications for culture-and-cognition research are discussed.     

Associations of blood glucose control with self-efficacy and rated anxiety/depression in type II diabetes mellitus patients

We investigated the possible relations of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) level, a parameter of blood glucose control with scores on anxiety, depression, and self-efficacy for 113 outpatients (55 men and 58 women) with type II diabetes mellitus. The relation between the HbA1c level and the self-efficacy scores as well as with the ratings of anxiety and depression was evaluated. A significant relation was found for the HbA1c level with the scores; however, self-efficacy and anxiety and depression showed no association. These results suggest that HbA1c can be maintained at better levels by increasing self-efficacy of diabetic patients.     

Development of carefulness and quickness observed for a tray-carrying task

The purpose of this study was to investigate the developmental change in performance of groups of children instructed to behave carefully and quickly in a tray-carrying task. The subjects were 69 nonhandicapped children from a kindergarten, ages 3-4 to 6 years, and 20 adult students who volunteered. Subjects were instructed to carry as fast as they could a tray with a glass of water for 3 m without a spill. The amounts of water spilled and the times taken were measured. The amounts of water spilled were hardly different within groups of children of the same ages or between age groups. But the times were different among groups: the younger ones took longer, and the difference in time between tray-carrying and normal walking was greatest for the youngest group. Children could carry the tray as carefully as adults but could not do so quickly. The nature of the representation of the instruction in relation to the behavior of children and the difference in strategy to guarantee carefulness between children and the adults are discussed.     

Judgments of Processing Load in Japanese: The Effect of NP-ga Sequences

This study reports an effect of more than two consecutive noun phrases (NPs) with the same nominative case marker, -ga, on ratings of processability for Japanese multiply center-embedded sentences. The findings imply that the processing overload theory of Babyonyshev and Gibson (1995) requires modification. Although that theory sets the critical limit (beyond which parser breakdown occurs) at four processing load units (PLUs), it appears that the parser is overloaded by anything over five PLUs. where a three NP-ga sequence contributes roughly an additional PLU to processing cost. The evidence also suggests that inherently cased NPs are not cost free.     

What Is Line Bisection in Unilateral Spatial Neglect?: Analysis of Perceptual and Motor Aspects in Line Bisection Tasks

Three patients with unilateral spatial neglect could detect the difference of length between the right and left segments when a line had a transection mark. To examine the effect of response mode, the manual line bisection task and a new “line bisection task by fixation” were given to the patients. In tasks that used lines with no landmark, they showed apparent rightward errors. The results suggest that line bisection is not a task that examines the ability of patients with neglect to compare the right and left extents of a line. Where to fixate as the subjective midpoint may determine the rightward errors of bisection, whether manual response is used or not.     

Female Video Game Players and the Protective Effect of Feminist Identity Against Internalized Misogyny

Sex Roles - Video games often contain sexist content that may be connected to negative consequences for female video game players, such as internalizing negative attitudes and beliefs about women....     

Fourteen‐month‐old infants learn similar‐sounding words

Can infants, in the very first stages of word learning, use their perceptual sensitivity to the phonetics of speech while learning words? Research to date suggests that infants of 14 months cannot learn two similar‐sounding words unless there is substantial contextual support. The current experiment advances our understanding of this failure by testing whether the source of infants’ difficulty lies in the learning or testing phase. Infants were taught to associate two similar‐sounding words with two different objects, and tested using a visual choice method rather than the standard Switch task. The results reveal that 14‐month‐olds are capable of learning and mapping two similar‐sounding labels; they can apply phonetic detail in new words. The findings are discussed in relation to infants’ concurrent failure, and the developmental transition to success, in the Switch task.     

Measuring biting behavior induced by acute stress in the rat

Previous reports have indicated that biting behavior is enhanced in rats that are subject to acute stress. Several methods have been proposed for studying this phenomenon, one of which is the electromyography (EMG) of the jaw muscles. In this study, we compared total EMG activity with the EMG activity related to biting behavior, as determined by video monitoring, before and after restraint stress. Wistar albino rats (150 g) were subject to surgery for electrode placement 48 h before measurements. The EMG activity of the masseter muscle on one side was recorded for 10 min before and immediately after 30 min of restraint stress. Restraint stress increased jaw muscle EMG activity, although some of the activity was related to behaviors other than biting. Recording the EMG activity of jaw muscles is useful for measuring the stress response in rats, but careful video monitoring is needed if biting behavior is to be studied in particular.