Study of a cognitive effects model in Dohsa‐hou for the elderly

This study investigates the primary factors responsible for cognitive performance improvements as a result of dohsa‐hou (Japanese body‐oriented psychotherapy) for the elderly. The study divided participants into two homogeneous groups: an experimental group that attempted to improve upright balance by performing dohsa‐hou, and a control group to establish the drop‐off period for the effect of performing the given activities. The task processing time of Stroop Test and body sway and the situational anxiety during task processing of Stroop Tests were measured before and after the dohsa‐hou and drop‐off period. The results confirm that only the experimental group improved in body sway, had a shorter Stroop Color Test processing time and lower situational anxiety. From this study, it has been identified that: (a) information‐processing capacities spared for posture control are affected by distribution of processing resources towards solving other cognitive tasks; and (b) the effect of the release of attention from threat‐related information due to a decrease in attentional bias, which accompanied the decrease in situational anxiety, are primary factors in improving cognitive task performance.     

Differential reliance of chimpanzees and humans on automatic and deliberate control of motor actions

Humans are often unaware of how they control their limb motor movements. People pay attention to their own motor movements only when their usual motor routines encounter errors. Yet little is known about the extent to which voluntary actions rely on automatic control and when automatic control shifts to deliberate control in nonhuman primates. In this study, we demonstrate that chimpanzees and humans showed similar limb motor adjustment in response to feedback error during reaching actions, whereas attentional allocation inferred from gaze behavior differed. We found that humans shifted attention to their own motor kinematics as errors were induced in motor trajectory feedback regardless of whether the errors actually disrupted their reaching their action goals. In contrast, chimpanzees shifted attention to motor execution only when errors actually interfered with their achieving a planned action goal. These results indicate that the species differed in their criteria for shifting from automatic to deliberate control of motor actions. It is widely accepted that sophisticated motor repertoires have evolved in humans. Our results suggest that the deliberate monitoring of one’s own motor kinematics may have evolved in the human lineage.     

Effects of syntactic information on semantic access of ambiguous verbs in spoken language comprehension: Evidence from a cross‐modal priming experiment1

Abstract: The aim of this study was to examine how syntactic information affects the semantic processing of ambiguous verbs in spoken Japanese. The effect of a postpositional particle on semantic access of an ambiguous verb at the end of the sentence was demonstrated in two kinds of sentences, S‐ga‐V sentences (subject, subjective postpositional particle, and ambiguous verb) and O‐wo‐V sentences (object, objective postpositional particle, and ambiguous verb). A cross‐modal priming method was used in which a target noun was presented visually in Kanji (Chinese) characters either one syllable before the end or immediately after the end of the ambiguous verb. Weak multiple priming occurred in the one‐syllable‐before condition, followed by selective access in the immediately after condition, but this multiple access was partially constrained by the preceding postpositional particle. A brief occurrence of multiple access and rapid transition to selective access were detected. Furthermore, objective particles were found to have stronger constraints on multiple access than on subjective particles. A connectionist model using a constraint‐based lexical approach was consistent with the experimental results.     

Parents Don’t (Always) Know Their Children Have Been Bullied: Child‐Parent Discrepancy on Bullying and Family‐Level Profile of Communication Standards

Discrepancy between bullied victims’ experience and their parents’ understanding indicates underutilization of family support system, and thus presents an important risk factor. An online survey (N = 300 child‐father‐mother triads) was conducted to establish a framework that helps distinguish families with different child‐parent discrepancy levels. This family‐level variability was modeled by profiling child‐father‐mother triad’s family communication standard (FCS) orientations. This “FCS profile” indeed distinguished families with different levels of discrepancies. Further, SEM analyses revealed that those discrepancies presented a distinct risk factor vis‐à‐vis effects of bullying reports per se. Finally, FCS profile had an indirect association with victims’ well‐being via mediation by child‐parent discrepancy. These findings are discussed with regard to the role of family communication in bullied individuals’ coping processes.     

Slowly walking down to the more food: relative quantity discrimination in African spurred tortoises (Centrochelys sulcata)

Animal Cognition - Quantity discrimination, is thought to be highly adaptive as it allows an organism to select greater amounts of food or larger social groups. In contrast to mammals, the...     

Perception of the motion trajectory of objects from moving cast shadows in infant Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata)

The shadows cast by moving objects enable human adults and infants to infer the motion trajectories of objects. Nonhuman animals must also be able to discriminate between objects and their shadows and infer the spatial layout of objects from cast shadows. However, the evolutionary and comparative developmental origins of sensitivity to cast shadows have not been investigated. In this study, we used a familiarity/novelty preferential looking procedure to assess the ability of infant macaques, aged 7–24 weeks, to discriminate between a ‘depth’ display containing a ball and cast shadow moving diagonally and an ‘up’ display containing a ball with a diagonal trajectory and a shadow with a horizontal trajectory. The infant macaques could discriminate the trajectories of the balls based on the moving shadows. These findings suggest that the ability to perceive the motion trajectory of an object from the moving shadow is common to both humans and macaques.     

The Japanese Multidimensional Attitudes Scale Toward Persons With Autism Spectrum Disorders1

This study aimed to develop a Japanese Multidimensional Attitudes Scale (J-MAS) as a useful instrument to assess negative attitudes toward persons with autism spectrum disorder among typical Japanese persons. Five hundred and fifty-two Japanese participants completed the Japanese translation of the original version of the MAS, which was derived via the translation/back-translation method. An exploratory factor analysis revealed four factors (Cognitions, Negative Affects, Behaviors, and Calm) that corresponded to the factor model of the original version of the MAS. Nine items were statistically negligible, accordingly. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the factor model of the J-MAS is fairly good, and preferable to the factor models of the English, Spanish, French, Korean, and German versions for a sample of typical Japanese persons. These results indicate that the J-MAS provides a valid assessment of attitudes toward persons with autism spectrum disorder among typical Japanese persons.