A pattern of common acoustic modification by human mothers to gain attention of a child and by macaques of others in their group

Criticisms of how Niwano and Sugai (2002) conducted their analysis of pitch change in human mothers' repeated utterances to their children suggest mothers resort to utterance with elevated pitch when infants are initially unresponsive. When this phenomenon is compared with an evaluation of similar data for free-ranging macaques, a certain common pattern of human mothers and the macaques may be observed in seeking to gain the attention of another.     

Triangulation and adolescent development in the U.S. and Japan.

Using an indirect measure of family structure, relationships between parents and adolescents were studied in 99 U. S. and 60 Japanese families. As two-person relationships tend toward instability under stress, a third person may be drawn in to stabilize the system. Parents, for example, may avoid the tension in the marital relationship by focusing together on an adolescent's problem, or pull the adolescent into a coalition with one parent. Either way the parents are said to have "triangled" the adolescent. In this study, a relationship is found between parents avoiding tension in their own relationship and their tendency to triangle an adolescent. Triangled daughters, in both cultures, had lower scores on ego development, supporting the hypothesis that such patterns can be detrimental to the adolescent's personal development. The discussion includes comments on cross-cultural research.     

Threading dislocation with b=c+2a in 4H-SiC as determined by LACBED

The Burgers vectors of the so-called threading screw dislocations (a total of 28 dislocations) in 4H-SiC were determined by large-angle convergent-beam electron diffraction. A new type of TSD, that is, b = c + 2a dislocation, was identified. Thus, all of the four types of TSD predicted by Onda et al. [Phil. Mag. Lett. 93 (2013) p.591] were identified.     

Negative support of significant others affects psychological adjustment in breast cancer patients

Significant others play an important role in providing support in patients’ lives, but some types of support negatively affect the patients. This study was conducted in early-stage breast cancer patients to examine the structure of support, which was provided by their significant others and assessed negatively by the patients, and to identify negative support relating to the psychological adjustment of these patients. Thus, we first conducted interviews among 28 breast cancer patients to identify these support items assessed as negative; next, we conducted a questionnaire survey using the resulting items in 109 postoperative patients who had early-stage breast cancer. We performed exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and obtained a valid second-order factor structure, including superordinate factors (excessive engagement, avoidance of problems and underestimation) and subordinate factors (overprotection, encouragement and management). Among these factors, the avoidance of problems was the only factor to be negatively associated with psychological adjustment of the patients, suggesting that these patients receive problem-avoiding support. The results of our study suggest that such problem-avoiding support from significant others can be counter-productive and potentially worsen the psychological adjustment of breast cancer patients.     

Type-based associations in grapheme-color synaesthesia revealed by response time distribution analyses

Determining the nature of binding in grapheme-color synaesthesia has consequences for understanding the neural basis of synaesthesia and visual awareness in general. We evaluated type- and token-based letter-color binding using a synaesthetic version of the object-reviewing paradigm. Although mean response times failed to reveal any significant differences between synaesthetes and control participants, RT analyses with ex-Gaussian distributions revealed that the response facilitation in the synaesthesia group reflected type representations exclusively, while response facilitation in the control group, who learned letter-color associations, was dominated by token representations. Thus, letter-color associations in associator synaesthetes are type-based, and do not involve binding to object tokens, consistent with their subjective reports. Contrary to recent studies that failed to find differences between synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes with behavioral measures, response time distribution analyses indicate that color sensations in synaesthetes are not simply the extreme form of normal letter-color associations, and cannot be attributed to demand characteristics.     

Fourier analysis of broad spectral EEG from a fluctuation point of view

It is believed that the EEG is the most reliable method of evaluating brain function, but neither quantitative nor qualitative studies of the EEG have been carried out over the entire range of frequencies. Analysis of limited frequency bands of the EEG has not disclosed the whole of neuronal activity. The aim of this study is to clarify the upper limit of EEG frequency. Our EEG analytic system is composed of a high fidelity preamplifier and signal processor with a frequency response within ?3 dB below 20 kHz. Thirty adult cats were used for these experiments. The upper limit of the frequency varied in different structures: 6.9 ± 0.8 kHz (± SEM) in motor cortex, 4.1 ± 0.3 kHz in the hippocampus, 2.9 ± 0.5 kHz in the amygdala, 9.3 ± 0.6 kHz in the ventrolateral nucleus of the thalamus, and 9.9 ± 0.5 kHz in the midbrain reticular formation. Three different types of amplitude spectra were characterized in bilogarithmic graphs. These types are named types f, f + L, and L corresponding to 1/f or Lorentzian fluctuation. In conclusion, the upper limit of frequency and the spectral types correspond to the neuronal specificity of different brain regions. Their physioanatomic significance is discussed.     

Cross-cultural perspectives on pitch memory

We examined effects of age and culture on children's memory for the pitch level of familiar music. Canadian 9- and 10-year-olds distinguished the original pitch level of familiar television theme songs from foils that were pitch-shifted by one semitone, whereas 5- to 8-year-olds failed to do so (Experiment 1). In contrast, Japanese 5- and 6-year-olds distinguished the pitch-shifted foils from the originals, performing significantly better than same-age Canadian children (Experiment 2). Moreover, Japanese 6-year-olds were more accurate than their 5-year-old counterparts. These findings challenge the prevailing view of enhanced pitch memory during early life. We consider factors that may account for Japanese children's superior performance such as their use of a pitch accent language (Japanese) rather than a stress accent language (English) and their experience with musical pitch labels.     

Effects of facial expression and gaze direction on approach–avoidance behaviour

Humans must coordinate approach–avoidance behaviours with the social cues that elicit them, such as facial expressions and gaze direction. We hypothesised that when someone is observed looking in a particular direction with a happy expression, the observer would tend to approach that direction, but that when someone is observed looking in a particular direction with a fearful expression, the observer would tend to avoid that direction. Twenty-eight participants viewed stimulus faces with averted gazes and happy or fearful expressions on a computer screen. Participants were asked to grasp (approach) or withdraw from (avoid) a left- or right-hand button depending on the stimulus face's expression. The results were consistent with our hypotheses about avoidance responses, but not with respect to approach responses. Links between social cues and adaptive behaviour are discussed.     

The Thatcher illusion in squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus)

Like humans, Old World monkeys are known to use configural face processing to distinguish among individuals. The ability to recognize an individual through the perception of subtle differences in the configuration of facial features plays an important role in social cognition. To test this ability in New World monkeys, this study examined whether squirrel monkeys experience the Thatcher illusion, a measure of face processing ability in which changes in facial features are difficult to detect in an inverted face. In the experiment, the monkeys were required to distinguish between a target face and each of the three kinds of distracter faces whose features were altered to be different from those of the target. For each of the pairs of target and distracter faces, four rotation-based combinations of upright and inverted face presentations were used. The results revealed that when both faces were inverted and the eyes of the distracter face were altered by rotating them at an angle of 180° from those of the target face, the monkeys' discrimination learning was obstructed to a greater extent than it was under the other conditions. Thus, these results suggest that the squirrel monkey does experience the Thatcher illusion. Furthermore, it seems reasonable to assume that squirrel monkeys can utilize information about facial configurations in individual recognition and that this facial configuration information could be useful in their social communications.     

A General Model of Preventive and Interventive Self‐Control

The field of self‐control has witnessed an unprecedented boom, not least due to the immense implications of successful and unsuccessful self‐control for people’s lives. However, successful and unsuccessful self‐control can take many different forms, and many conceptual problems have been raised as to what self‐control is about and how to best study it. Integrating different literatures, we provide a general model of self‐control which distinguishes between preventive (i.e., anticipatory) and interventive (i.e., momentary) forms of self‐control. The proposed Preventive‐Interventive Model (PI‐Model) of Self‐Control combines seven basic components: preventive strategies, desire, conflict, control motivation, volition, opportunity constraints, and behavior enactment. The resulting taxonomy helps to distinguish self‐control from standard motivational processes, to define the concept of temptation, and to identify different types of self‐control failure including self‐monitoring failure, motivational self‐control failure, and volitional self‐control failure. Further, the model helps to outline five broad mechanisms through which people may be able to proactively boost self‐control success.